Buy Plans for the CKB Chuck Box

by Kurt Huber | Published 2/23/2016

You have seen the Movie! Now read the book! Some folks have suggested that maybe I should write up plans and instructions on making Camping Kitchen Boxes and sell the plans , so I have, and they are available here.

What you get for your money (nine dollars and ninety five cents of your money) is a 25 page downloadable Adobe PDF document full of photos and illustrations on how the Camping Kitchen Box Chuck Box is made, cutting diagrams for parts and information on where to get unusual parts and supplies.

Below is a sample page in Adobe Reader.

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How Light is the Camping Kitchen Box?

by Kurt Huber | Published 11/15/2015

The most unique feature of the Camping Kitchen Box, compared to other chuck boxes, is its weight, which is only 12 lbs. How much lighter is the Camping Kitchen Box compared to other boxes? Below I compare the CKB to a home built chuck box, and then some popular commercial chuck boxes.

The Home Made Chuck Box

REI recently had a blog post with plans on how to make a chuck box out of ½ inch plywood. There are hundreds of chuck plans out on the internet, but these particular plans are good for making a direct comparison to the CKB, because the final dimensions (28” X 21” X 16½” ) are a good match up with the Camping Kitchen Boxes Dimension (25" X 22½" X 17") and they both are designed not to have their own legs. The weight of half inch plywood depending on woods species, glue and other factors, so it can weigh anywhere from 40 to 50 lbs for a standard 4’ X 8’ (32 square foot) sheet. If you take the cut list for the REI box and add up all the dimensions it uses 26.5 square feet of plywood. Using the low end of 40 lbs per square foot that makes the weight of the box at 33 lbs before screwing and gluing it together and adding hardware. By the time all is said and done, this chuck box can easily weight almost 3 times the weight of the CKB!

Commercial Chuck Boxes

Below is a comparison on some other commercial chuck boxes and the CKB. These are weights without legs. I have also added the outside dimensions and a rough calculation of interior space based on those dimensions, and for fun divided the weight by the interior space so you can directly compare each box. A higher volume / weight number is better.

Chuck Box	Material	W X H X D (Inches)	Volume Sq In.	Weight (LBS)	Volume / Weight
CKB	Corrugated Plastic	28 X 21 X 16.5	9702	12	808
Kanz Field Kitchen	Aluminum & Plywood	25.4 X 19.4 X 15	7391	25	296
My Camp Kitchen Outdoorsman	Birch Plywood	28.625 X 18.25 X 13.75	7183	35	205
Camping Box Classic Chuck Box	Plywood	31 X 15 X 17	7905	28	282
Yoke Outdoors Chuck Box	Roto-Molded Plastic	24.5 X 19 X 18	8379	19	441

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Coleman Stoves 413 414 vs 424 425

by Kurt Huber | Published 2/14/2014

For the past 50 years Coleman has essentially made two models of liquid fuel two burner stoves, the 424 / 425 and the larger 413 / 414.

The 424 and 414 are Dual Fuel stoves that burn both Coleman fuel and Unleaded gas. You can tell the Dual fuel stoves at a glance because they have silver fuel tanks as opposed to the red tanks for the traditional Coleman fuel (white gas) only stoves, the 413 and 425 models.

Comparison of Dimensions (in inches)

	424 / 425	413 /414
Unit Closed	18 X 12 X 4 1/2	22 X 13 X 5 1/2
Cooking Surface	10 X 17	20 X 11
Burners Center to Center	9 1/2	11

I recently acquired a Coleman 425 stove from the Goodwill so I thought that I would sit it next to a 414 and take some pictures to compare the size of the two units. The 414 is the larger with the silver fuel tank and the 425 is the smaller with the red tank.