Ever break your titanium pot?

I have several and can't imagine what it would take to break one. Dig a foxhole with it maybe?

Speaking from my experience with of Snowpeak, Evernew and Toaks pots and mugs, if you break one of them, you're doing something very very very wrong.

Our puppy got a hand-me-down snow peak Ti bowl, and after almost a year of chewing, dropping, scooting, shaking and stepping on, it's in pretty great shape.

I have an Evernew pot which was packed in a soft bag which someone loaded too heavy, hard-sided suitcases on top of in a coach luggage hold. The pot got bent but didn't break. I straightened the pot out but a slight dent remains in the lip.

Mine was dented was all a few years, doing off trail in Desolation Wilderness. New ZPacks pack received a small hole, between the rock and a hard spot (the pot).
Duane

Whoever wrote that Ti is brittle simply does not have a clue.
I have been using the same dentless Ti pots for years.
I machine Ti (CP and 6Al4V).
It isn't brittle; it's very tough.

cheers

I watched a guy break his titanium pot once.

He was using it to hammer titanium tent stakes into rocky ground.

That is not exactly a manufacturing or materials defect.

–B.G.–

> He was using it to hammer titanium tent stakes into rocky ground.

Pass.

cheers

As said above anyone that states titanium is more brittle that aluminium is absolutely clueless.

Of course there are various different grades of aluminium and titanium alloys, so generalisation is tough, but aluminium in general does not flex well.

As a point of reference, if you look at various applications of aluminium use where it is stressed it's usually over sized.
Pushbikes are a great example, aluminium frames usually use mode larger diameter tubing than if say steel was used instead.
Reason for this is to stop the aluminium flexing, as if it does it will fail.

Titanium on the other hand is used on pushbikes to give a softer plusher ride, that's because it can be allowed to bend (to a certain degree) without failing.

There have even been pushbike made back in the day that had a rudimentary rear suspension consisting of a elastomer (for the damping) and no joints, the rear frame was designed to flex rather than have joints.
This frame was made of titanium.

Sure titanium can and does fail, just like aluminium, but for brittleness it's not even close aluminium is far far more brittle than Ti

Yup. I fell on it, bent it and cracked the edge down about an inch when I tried to pull it out. This was an older ti pot with no lid that cost me ~$80 at the time. I was super pissed off and got rid of all my ti pots (snow peak 1400, titan, etc.) vowing never to buy another.

I have an old $5 grease pot that got squashed till the two edges were meeting. I simply pulled it out again and continue to use it to this day.

Aluminum just dents/bends, Ti breaks.

Roger, yup, it is tough stuff. I don't mind using it where it is not subject to getting bent and repairing it by simply unbending it. Pots are a good example.

It does not take compressive bending/unbending very well. Like ti foil, a good bend should not be unbent…well, maybe by heating it really well first. Dan Y. used stainless for his BGET stoves because Ti was not good on the bends, not because of some other reason. Steel is actually a lot heavier and not as tough as Ti, despite looking at a SUL stove.

The outer part of a bend does not like to stretch so it applies force, before it looses cohesion, to the inner layers. This means that the inner portions become compressed, or essentially tempered(stronger, but more brittle.) Unbending will reverse the process, usually resulting in a crack. This is why repeatedly bending a piece of wire will "break" it. (Heat will often soften or "reset" the metal so it can be bent again in a process called annealing.) Ti is much more prone to compressive strengthening than aluminum since it is a larger molecule. Yes, Ti is much stronger, but aluminum just takes bending better. I think the heat of annealing is far less with aluminum, also.

Hi James

> It does not take compressive bending/unbending very well.
That depends on whether it is alpha or beta phase. However, get it up to red heat and it goes into a super-plastic flow state, and you can form (bend) it like wow. I developed a hot press for bending Ti for this reason. Very effective.

Cheers

I was reading the "Gentrified" thread thinking I was immune to judging people for doing stuff with expense gear. And I was kinda proud of myself as said: I dont care what people do with their money. Its THEIR money. The should be free to do with it as they please.

But Ti for the puppy?

Thanks for popping my bubble.

(said in a spirit of levity)

Used titanium for years now. Works perfect. I don't jump down on my pot with anger. Maybe that's why I've been lucky?

"… However, get it up to red heat and it goes into a super-plastic flow state, and you can form (bend) it like wow."

Yeah, like most metals, it forms fairly easily, hot. Anyway, "I wasn't geared for it" would be a bit of an understatement.
(Edited to include it holds strength almost till it melts.)