I made a solar oven ( solar box oven ) recently and while I was somewhat pleased by the results, it seemed to take a good amount of labor and was hard to make the first time.

After some thinking I came up with a design that was a lot easier to make and was also 400 % more efficient than the solar box oven.

The design goes like this (1) get your box ( I used an empty 12-can soda pop box ) and cut it so you have four sides and a bottom. (2) use a large Reynolds Oven bag and fit inside the box ( I cut a bag into 2 parts and put inside, one part overlapping the other ). (3) Get a sheet of aluminum foil and fit into the box ( again I used two overlapping sheets ). ( Don't worry about neatness ) (4) Get a stapler and staple the aluminum foil all around to the box. (5) Spray the foil inside the box with non-toxic black paint ( I used ColorPlace fastdry spraypaint from Wallmart, about $1.00 ), in a few hours the paint will be dry. (6) Use another Reynolds Oven Bag to cover the oven and hold in the heat, you can use clothespins to secure the bag to the oven all around.

I was able to get by with a tiny tot stapler with mine, for a larger box you may need a full-size stapler or something like tacs. It took 2hrs to pasturize a 12oz can of water with my solar box oven, but only 30 min with my new oven, hence the 400 % figure. Also it pasturized 4 cans in one hour so its functioning is not necessarily linear.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), December 16, 1999