48 Hours, Pie in the Sky and Nudes on Earth

48 Hours on the Kickstarter: Click Here!  http://kck.st/229WnXq

This is a tiny graphic of the Fire Starter rewards, for visual people.  Every backer at $10 or higher gets all these things, plus the specific stuff it mentions in the reward level, plus stretch goal bonuses.

There are going to be a LOT of stretch goal bonus eBooks, because we have hit a LOT of stretch goals.

Shrimp: Compact cooking rocket
The outside looks almost normal.
Inside, there is a 4" batchbox,
which gives a 6"w/12"d/9"h oven;
a curled-up heat riser (!) and insulation.
Thick steel tray holds oven heat.
Optional range cover traps some heat
(like a Dutch oven).
For tight clearances (insulated)
the outside dimens. may be about
15" wide by 24" tall, and 24" deep.
With a rear chimney port it could
possibly be coupled to a bell for
a mass-heater extension - first,
we must see how it burns.

Teeny Tiny Mass Heater Plans.
Bitter Rocket Mass Heaters: Lessons from the Dark Side (or something like that)
The Heat Riser Cookbook, and Innovator's Cookbook, and if we hit our next goal we also release Mysterious Manifolds.
 
I spent Hour 52 to Hour 50 doing a concept drawing for the Shrimp on a brown paper bag this morning.

I'm adding the Shrimp as an unofficial stretch goal at $40,000.
(I'm planning to finish prototyping it during the Alternative Tech course in June, so you can always come and see it then. 
If we cross $40,000, I will make sure all backers get the plans and progress notes, as well as two other plan sets to fulfill the Teeny Tiny Mass Heaters goal from before.)

Also, we have some beautiful rocket kitchens from recent years, with a quick online search.  I'd like to do an investigative tour of those, and get the inside scoop from from their builders, as our pie-in-the-sky $50,000 stretch goal.

Batch-box cooking rocket in soapstone (by Hendrik)

Brazilian kitchen with two Plancha-style rockets

I love the creative inspiration, and this is a new milestone for me as a small business proprietor.  The potential budget for this year's projects is heartening.

Ernie was disappointed to realize we don't get to keep ALL the money - a lot of it goes to pay for books, shipping, content delivery, payment processing fees, and other costs.  Yet this is still a HUGE step forward in our goals for this year.

As we sell more books at once, we also get a better per-book rate from the publisher, which adds up to thousands of extra dollars (beyond the margins we calculated to conservatively cover all the costs).

Satamax's rocket retrofit project from France

Thank you to everyone who has supported and endorsed and edited and encouraged this project.

We have been trying for years to convey how warm and decadent it really feels to enjoy one of these heated benches, plus the radiant warmth from that blackened-steel barrel.

It rarely comes across in pictures.

It becomes more obvious when you hear about Mongolian women sitting on the bench and giggling together as their undersides warm up.

Or our friends from a nature education center report, "you should warn people these things are an aphrodisiac." They had 3 new pregnancies the winter after installing their first rocket mass heater. (Apparently, the ladies on staff had been tolerating a chilly office and cold feet for a LONG time.)

A few years later, the same conversation led to a creative photography session between two talented ladies, and the raw image here, showing a lovely mama enjoying warm cob in Montana in October, without a stitch on but her hair.

If you prefer imaginary nudes,
you might enjoy imagining them
in this rocket sauna.

Nude on a Rocket Mass Heater (NSFW)

Not Safe For Work. You been warned.
Some call it Art, others may find it objectionable.


She looks pretty comfy, doesn't she?

The lovely and talented Katelin, besides being a figure model, is raising a wonderful son, and can cook Paleo meals for 50 in an ordinary home kitchen with a rocket spare-burner out back.
 
She had the courage to put up with some flack about this already, and confirmed she was comfortable with releasing the pictures.  If you choose to look, please be mature about it.

Katelin and photographer Priscilla Smith (www.priscillasmithphotography.com) created this photo to convey the earthy sensuality of the warm bench.  I suspect Priscilla will work this photo over at some point, and turn it into grainy, painterly art - check out her other pieces if you want a lovely visual break, mostly SFW and sometimes surreal.

Ernie also used to model, incidentally, for art classes.
Maybe I should get Priscilla to take Ernie nude pics on the same rocket, for equal rights.
...

OK, Mom, I have officially sold out.  Not sure how much farther we can go to demonstrate the luxurious comfort and clean-living benefits of these heaters.

Luckily for you, in 48 hours we go back to our "normal" lives.  We'll stop saying "Kickstarter" and post more pics of me in gumboots stocking the woodshed, baking duck-shaped cream puffs, practicing tadelakt on rocket hammam (sauna) benches in a Moroccan village.

You know.

Normal.

:-)

Yours,
Erica

Less Than 48 Hours on the Kickstarter!
Click Here: http://kck.st/229WnXq