View Full Version : titanium pot burn thru?
greentick
05-16-2006, 08:39
Anyone heard of a stove burning through the bottom of a titanium pot? A buddy of mine was warning me of this danger:eek: and I wonder how true it is or is it a hiking [urban] legend. An idea for Mythbusters? Thanks.
Footslogger
05-16-2006, 08:42
Been using mine (Evernew 0.9 Liter) for over 5 years now and have a few black spots on the bottom but no burn throughs. I would think it would need to get awful hot to cause a burn through.
'Slogger
Anyone heard of a stove burning through the bottom of a titanium pot? A buddy of mine was warning me of this danger:eek: and I wonder how true it is or is it a hiking [urban] legend. An idea for Mythbusters? Thanks.I think he may be referring to aluminum pots. Titanium is about as durable as you are going to get, and is used for firewalls in aircraft.
You do have to be careful with the no-stick coating though. I tried simmering some pasta once and burned it to the bottom of the pan. It cleaned up, but the coating on the bottom was wrecked.
The safest method is to boil water, turn off the stove, add whatever you are cooking, then cover with a cozy and let it set until cooked. It is HARD to burn just water and besides, it saves fuel.
Dances with Mice
05-16-2006, 09:50
Anyone heard of a stove burning through the bottom of a titanium pot? A buddy of mine was warning me of this danger:eek: and I wonder how true it is or is it a hiking [urban] legend. An idea for Mythbusters? Thanks.No, no, no! Tell your friend to get his story straight: It was an aluminum dutch oven that burned through when some Scouts were using it in a windstorm. I know a guy who has a neighbor whose son talked to someone that was there when it happened.
greentick
05-16-2006, 10:33
No, no, no! Tell your friend to get his story straight: It was an aluminum dutch oven that burned through when some Scouts were using it in a windstorm. I know a guy who has a neighbor whose son talked to someone that was there when it happened.
no s***, there I was... or wasn't.
icemanat95
05-16-2006, 11:01
From what I've been reading recently, most titanium alloys used in pots do not spread absorbed heat very well, so you can get concentrated hot spots. I'm still skeptical of burn throughs in titanium because one of it's first uses was within jet engines, very hot places indeed. It was selected for this purpose because of its ability to retain structural integrity at very high temperatures.
I suppose that if you let the pot boil off all the contents at very high temperature and forgot about it, the stove might be able to overheat the pot badly enough that it could fail. It's amazing how fast a pot will buckle over high heat without the heat sink provided by water or food in the pan. Even the most expensive stuff won't last long without fluids boiling away the excess heat. I ruined an expensive All Clad saucepan that way. The stainless steel interior and exterior layers expanded at a different rate from the aluminum layer between them and buckled and de-bonded. Horrible waste.
So a thin walled titanium pot built to be as light as possible MIGHT self-destruct under less than perfect conditions. Anyone have an old titanium pot they want to submit for destructive testing? I'll be glad to see if a whisperlite can kill it.
Amigi'sLastStand
05-22-2006, 19:32
Nearly impossible.
Assuming the use of a backpacker stove and the pot was solid titanium or a standard Ti alloy, no bonded layers...
Isobutane/propane under perfect conditions = 3500F max temp
Titanium melts (burns) at 3034F.
While still possible, extremely unlikely. Heat would need to be applied via a welding torch to a single spot. Never gonna happen in the outdoors to pot over a stove.
fiddlehead
05-23-2006, 01:14
I once hiked with a guy who worked in an oil refinery near Seattle. He told me that he used to mix up his own fuel and made it burn really hot so he wouldn't have to carry as much weight. Once he made it so hot, he burned through his titanium cookpot. He went back and adjusted the mix a little and still carried less fuel than anyone else.
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-23-2006, 16:19
I once hiked with a guy who worked in an oil refinery near Seattle. He told me that he used to mix up his own fuel and made it burn really hot so he wouldn't have to carry as much weight. Once he made it so hot, he burned through his titanium cookpot. He went back and adjusted the mix a little and still carried less fuel than anyone else.
Only IF he boiled it dry would he have a shred of a chance at burning up an aluminum OR titanium pot ANY liquid at all is too much of a heat sink.
Also, assuming he wasn't 'posing', what happened to his burner head and pot supports?
fiddlehead
05-24-2006, 04:18
I don't know, he just told me the story, and i didn't question it.
I did see him catch some trout with just a hook and piece of pink plastic ribbon though. But i'm not saying where.
saimyoji
05-24-2006, 07:48
Based on my experience last night, I'd say its possible.
I put my snowpeak minisolo on my gigapower with the large pot full of water. Fired it up, placed a trial windscreen around the pot. Windscreen was made of four layers of aluminum foil, it covered the burners all the way up the pot. I use a heat shield underneith the burners. After about 3 min. I noticed something not quit right, there was clinking, and a strange smell. The handle, where the windscreen was touching, had started to burn. I immediately shut off the stove, removed the screen and checked it out. Indeed the handle is burned, discolored. It still works, and thank goodness its just the handle. But I think this proves that it is possible, without too much trouble, to burn titanium. Now, whether you can burn through it is another story.
I have burned through aluminum pots on my gas range in my kitchen, but thats also another story.
SGT Rock
05-24-2006, 09:19
Just remember that titanium pots are not truly pure titanium. They are a mix of titanium and aluminum in an aloy. the most common is 6AL-4V.
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-24-2006, 09:25
Based on my experience last night, I'd say its possible.
I put my snowpeak minisolo on my gigapower with the large pot full of water. Fired it up, placed a trial windscreen around the pot. Windscreen was made of four layers of aluminum foil, it covered the burners all the way up the pot. I use a heat shield underneith the burners. After about 3 min. I noticed something not quit right, there was clinking, and a strange smell. The handle, where the windscreen was touching, had started to burn. I immediately shut off the stove, removed the screen and checked it out. Indeed the handle is burned, discolored. It still works, and thank goodness its just the handle. But I think this proves that it is possible, without too much trouble, to burn titanium. Now, whether you can burn through it is another story.
I have burned through aluminum pots on my gas range in my kitchen, but thats also another story.
discolored =/= burned... ALL metals will discolor if the temp gets high enough... this temp is typically FAR below the melting point, however.
REalize that when we talk about 'burn through' what we really mean is 'melt through' the energy required to burn (aka vaporize) metal (other than aluminum) is very large
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-24-2006, 09:31
I don't know, he just told me the story, and i didn't question it.
I did see him catch some trout with just a hook and piece of pink plastic ribbon though. But i'm not saying where.
the story sounds more like the guys who boast "Heh, I mixed these three fuel additives and manages to get my civic up to 250 mph on the highway but then I figured it wasn't safe so I stopped doing it and threw away the notes on my mixture"
Tell y'all what... in order to put this to bed... when I get home tonight I'll set up my giga-ti, ti-600 and homeade ti-windscreen (http://homepage.mac.com/jdmitch/PhotoAlbum3.html) with no water and let it rip on a half canister of fuel that I have left over (which means it's mostly butane aka higher energy content) until the fuel is gone, will picture results of that satisfy everyone?
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-24-2006, 22:15
Well, I didn't get around to doing my little 'experiment' tonight. The new baby had been a pill all day so my wife needed some help when I got home.
However, I did manage to dig everything out of my gear bags (including my camera) and should be able to conduct the experiment tomorrow.
I plan on taking 'status' pictures every 5 minutes or so...
Skidsteer
05-24-2006, 22:26
Well, I didn't get around to doing my little 'experiment' tonight. The new baby had been a pill all day so my wife needed some help when I got home.
However, I did manage to dig everything out of my gear bags (including my camera) and should be able to conduct the experiment tomorrow.
I plan on taking 'status' pictures every 5 minutes or so...
Give it your best shot. Pictures are good. We'll wait. :D
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-25-2006, 20:22
Okay, so my half-canister was more like a 1/10 canister, so I decided to sacrifice my full canister... basically nothing happened (though I now have a very coolly blued windscreen and mug)
I will have to say that I got spooked for a moment because, when I first started the burn with the new canister I got the mug glowing bright :D this was due to the propane coming out fast and the temp being high enough to burn the creosote coating that the mug had accumulated... I DID turn it down slightly from full burn for a moment (as high as a could and keep the flames focused on the pot)... it kept glowing for a while until the creosote burned off...
I wish I had done this at night as the pics would have been much cooler... as it is, I MAY have been able to damage something if I had left it at full burn... maybe... but the glow was no more than you get when you get a grill hot so I doubt it... plus there was a limit to how much creosote I had on the mug...
Also, as I've said before, liquid in the mug would have made a massive heat sink... also, realize that the 'windscreen' was made out of a Snowpeak Ti Bowl (arguably the thinnest ti pot out there) and the windscreen was never damaged...
Pictures will be forthcoming sometime when I find my adapter...
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-25-2006, 20:23
Note, I turned it back up to full after a few moments, but since the creosote was gone... no more 'glowy' mug... :(
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-25-2006, 20:23
And I left it at full burn until the canister was empty...
orangebug
05-25-2006, 21:44
I burned through aluminum pot on my SVEA 123R many years ago. It wasn't very hard to do at all, just let things boil dry and fail to remove it from the fire. :D
I once hiked with a guy who worked in an oil refinery near Seattle. He told me that he used to mix up his own fuel and made it burn really hot so he wouldn't have to carry as much weight. Once he made it so hot, he burned through his titanium cookpot. He went back and adjusted the mix a little and still carried less fuel than anyone else.
I'm skeptical. If there was water in the pot, it's impossible to get the bottom higher than 212 degrees F. plus or minus a degree or two depending on altitude and barometer readings. Excess burning temperatures simply boil away the liquid faster and in the process waste energy and fuel pack weight .
Without a liquid, the ingredients would be totally burned dry and into charcoal long before temperatures reached anything like 3,000 degrees plus.
Once you reach boiling temperature, you save fuel by keeping as close to boiling temperature as possible. Fuel that wants to burn hotter, wastes fuel. It doesn't save fuel.
Weary
From what I've been reading recently, most titanium alloys used in pots do not spread absorbed heat very well, so you can get concentrated hot spots. I'm still skeptical of burn throughs in titanium because one of it's first uses was within jet engines, very hot places indeed. It was selected for this purpose because of its ability to retain structural integrity at very high temperatures.
I suppose that if you let the pot boil off all the contents at very high temperature and forgot about it, the stove might be able to overheat the pot badly enough that it could fail. It's amazing how fast a pot will buckle over high heat without the heat sink provided by water or food in the pan. Even the most expensive stuff won't last long without fluids boiling away the excess heat. I ruined an expensive All Clad saucepan that way. The stainless steel interior and exterior layers expanded at a different rate from the aluminum layer between them and buckled and de-bonded. Horrible waste.
So a thin walled titanium pot built to be as light as possible MIGHT self-destruct under less than perfect conditions. Anyone have an old titanium pot they want to submit for destructive testing? I'll be glad to see if a whisperlite can kill it.
With water inside, it won't self destruct. Without water, I suspect you can burn through titanium, but not until long after any food inside has been destroyed.
The ability of titanium not to burn through has nothing to do with cooking food; but something to do with preventing a pot made out out of titanium from self destructing from hiker neglect while it is sitting on a stove.
The same, of course, is true of aluminum pots. Aluminum pots containing water won't rise above 212 F plus or minus. Without water, they will burn on and eventually self destruct at a temperatue lower than the titanium self-destruct temperature.
Weary, who despite Sly, after 60 years still remembers his high school chemistry and physics.
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-25-2006, 22:25
Pics (http://www.lanthar.net/tiburntest/index.html) of the test are up...
this (http://www.lanthar.net/tiburntest/target8.html) is the best one to see how hot I got the bottom of the pot when the creosote was burning off.
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-25-2006, 22:27
Maybe in a week or two I'll do it with a snowpeak ti bowl on it.
NICKTHEGREEK
05-26-2006, 06:29
Pics (http://www.lanthar.net/tiburntest/index.html) of the test are up...
this (http://www.lanthar.net/tiburntest/target8.html) is the best one to see how hot I got the bottom of the pot when the creosote was burning off.
That's a pretty nice idea on the windscreen.
SGT Rock
05-26-2006, 06:59
Proably cheaper, lighter, and just as effective as adding all that JetBoil flux ring crap.
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-26-2006, 08:20
Proably cheaper, lighter, and just as effective as adding all that JetBoil flux ring crap.
Wasn't too hard to do... I keep mulling over how to make a 'every' fuel system out of three ti-bowls.
1) Pot
2) Burner Windscreen
3) Woodfire 'pot' (would double with above as alc windscreen or esbit windscreen)
Anyhow, the ti bowls are really nice.
SGT Rock
05-26-2006, 13:23
Nice idea. How well does it work for wood fires?
SGT Rock
05-26-2006, 13:59
Which bowl did you use to make that windscreen?
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-26-2006, 14:40
Nice idea. How well does it work for wood fires?
I haven't actually used one as a wood-burner yet. When I do I intend on the wood-burner being similar to Risk's Coffee Stove (http://www.imrisk.com/woodgas/coffeestove.htm).
However, I HAVE used the bowl as a pot once on a vegetable can wood-gas stove (http://www.imrisk.com/woodgas/ddstove.htm) (as well as on my gigapower ti a few times before sacrificing it for the windscreen project) and it boiled water just fine.
Which bowl did you use to make that windscreen?
The Snowpeak Titanium Bowl (http://www.snowpeak.com/gears/stw002t.htm). They're $12 most places. I still need to get two more in order to make my 'Multifuel Ti Cooking Set' :D.
The benefit is that the windscreen, cooking pot, and woodburner would all 'nest' onto a 3-cup ziploc bowl with homemade cozy (http://www.lanthar.net/snowpeakwindscreen/).
It'd make a pretty slick bit of kit for $36, IMO (not including 'other' pieces like an alc stove and a canister stove... however the alc-stove part would like be the ion I already have or simply an open tea-candle cup, both would double for esbit as well).
I'll probably mock everything up on some MSR Alpine Bowls (http://www.msrcorp.com/cookware/alpine_bowl.asp) first.
'Just Because' I'd probably use a bit of Ti Foil from titaniumgoat.com (http://www.titaniumgoat.com/windscreens.html) for a lid (the stuff from BPL isn't quite wide enough).
Right now that's all in 'idea-land'... haven't had a whole lot of time since the new baby arrived...
SGT Rock
05-26-2006, 15:01
I have been thinking of getting one of those Coleman F1 Ultralight stoves (http://www.coleman.com/coleman/colemancom/detail.asp?product_id=9741A700&categoryid=2005)after reading the review at BPL (http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/lightweight_canister_stoves_test_report.html)which had it almost as good as the Jetboil without all that extra weight from the flux ring and that annoying mug design. What I was hoping to do was attach some sort of windscreen to the stove burner that would do basically the same thing with less weight and allow me to use my Evernew 0.9L pot. Looks like your windscreen meets part of that, I just don't know how well my 5.25" diameter pot will work with that 5.5" bowl - and I already have one of those snow peak bowls at home too.
Lanthar Mandragoran
05-26-2006, 15:37
Yeah, I imagine that the ti-bowl / windscreen could be adapted for the F1 or any other ultralight canister stove fairly easily.
The sides are relatively steep (IIRC) so I imagine the pot would fit down the bowl / windscreen pretty well. You would need most of the 'curved / narrowing part' at the bottom to get out around the stand anyway.
The F1 has the benefit of the burner jets pointing up, rather than to the side like the giga-power, so you'll get the most benefit from simply protecting that flame from the wind.
The benefit of reducing convective cooling of the pot by the windscreen coming all the way up the pot would be marginal (and could be accomplished by a bit of ti foil if you really want to test it).
That's the one thing I regret about the giga-power is it's side jet design. Up jets like the F1 or the Vargo Jet-Ti are more efficient for smaller pots.
Of course, if you don't burn full bore, any of them could keep the flame contained under the pot.