[Stoves] scoping out a practical solid fuel stove igniter - fire piston ....and other kind of plunge

[Richard Stanley]

James, 
Nice to meet you. 
I still have the plunger in hand and will get onto it over the next week or so. Seems we need abetter piston ring or heavier grease around hte existing O ring..but you got me started n now, so theres  no turning back !
 
Richard 
I'd like to plunge into something else with you through:  I want to explore the business model for the diffusion of the briquette technology with you, as an experiened businessman. Frankly, we are off into uncharted waters in developing the "private entprepreneurship locally--information exchange globally" model I was talking about. It makes sense and its working in a general sort of way for many of us in our own network but there are no embedded processes set up yet to really make it acceptable and comfortable to many who enter the briquette activity. It needs to be fine tuned with more experience in the commercial world..

My issue with the conventional approach is e ar all thinking to small and too conventionally to really realise our collective strength. Yet it is critical to  retain one's freedom as entrepreneur, to  innovate with some sense of security and to go on to do well --or screw up-- in their own market arena too.  

How to assure both is  the question..I do not see this kind of thinking coming out in the stoves group..Its still the "my product which I patent and attempt to get made in china for a killing in the global market',  or its the  full on "open source giveaway" for the common good. 
 
To me,  for the stove but more so, for a local fuel briquette making activity, with local resrouces, neither model is really effective:
 On the one hand you have the small guy spending money on lawyers and distribution with a relatively heavy carbon footprint which tend to offset the benefit of the stove or the briquette press etc., --into a third world reality which will simply copy the design in places and under conditions where its almost impossible to monitor. 

On the other hand you have a stumble along donor grant dependency scenario… Neither utiises the strength of cooperative appeal for support and market awareness, both eventually windup on the street struggling along.. 

We are attempting to walk in between: Crazy ??