BPL exclusive–BRS-3000T Jetboil pot riser disk

[Jim Sweeney]

Will take one. PM coming.

[Manfred]

Great idea! Will take one.

Manfred

[Steve Chan]

I'll take one! So glad that I don't have to unbend the supports on my BRS-3000T!

[Gary Dunckel]

Today I mailed the first 12 riser disks. These were sent to the people that placed their orders yesterday and by 2:00 PM today. Orders placed between now and Sunday night will be mailed on Monday.

I thank you all for your participation, and I hope you will feel free to comment in this thread about your impressions of the Thingy. Good feedback as well as the bad is most welcome. If the design needs to be tweaked, I am happy to have Josh do that if I do a second batch.

[Gary Dunckel]

I just want to let you all know that I am now out of stock with the ti Jetboil pot risers, affectionately known as the JB Thingies. Manfred Kopisch wants to gift them to his Boy Scout staff members, as a way to thank them for their efforts, as well as to show them yet another way to lighten their packs (and to teach their Scouts). It was an opportunity to help more people out with this concept, so I cut him a big deal, and he bought the last 10 I have.

If there is any further interest in these riser disks, let me know on this watched thread. Josh said he'd make another batch for me. At this point I'm not seeing much more interest, so I'm not sure if it's wise for me to spring for another batch of 25. However, I have some titanium foil in the war room, and I would be happy to make one for the few that might want one.

For the non-BPL people, I can make one for you too, but the price will need to be a bit higher to satisfy Roger's "No whap" rule in order to be consistent with the BPL Exclusive Deal clause. I can be contacted at the following e-mail address:

drzooz (at) aol (dot) com

Thanks again for the support to make this geek-experiment work out. I think I pretty much broke even on this, and I even have a somewhat patina-ed Thingy for my own use. Fun stuff!

[Mark Jones]

It looks like I am a little late to the dance, but I would like one if you make another batch.

Thanks.

[Gary Dunckel]

Mark, I've decided to not order another batch of the pot risers. I would hate to end up sitting on 10-15 of them if they didn't sell.

However, I have some .004" CP titanium foil, and I would be happy to make some, one-by one. They will be lighter than Josh's (1.9 gm. vs 2.6 gm. for those made from the burly .008" CP foil), but they will function just as well. Josh and I agreed that .008" foil is overkill, but that's all he had available when I asked him to make a batch. The ones I make don't look quite as sweet as what Josh can do, but they're not at all bad. You see, Josh has the cool cutting machines where he can make clean cuts, whereas I have to use scissors to cut the foil. This results in a bit of a wavy inner circle (the outer edge comes out fine), which I burnish to make it look as best I can. Here's a photo of two that I made:

The one on the right hasn't been used, and you might see the sort of wavy inner edge I mentioned. This doesn't affect the function at all, but it doesn't look as clean as the ones Josh made for me. The one on the left is one that has been well used, and I got funky and added more patina to it to give it a Grateful Dead tie-dye look. The inner circle wavy edge on this one is barely noticeable due to the patina. With normal use, only the edge of the inner circle gets the patina, where the flame heats up the metal as it passes through. The patina has zero affect on the titanium.

What happens is that as the titanium heats up past a certain temperature, and then cools back down below that temperature, a very, very thin layer of titanium dioxide forms on the outer surface (by thin I am talking angstroms). The color is dictated by the thickness of the titanium dioxide layer, and it reflects light accordingly. The temperature at which this happens is somewhere around 1500 degrees F. Titanium melts at 3400* F, so the metal is not at all altered. For the metallurgy nerds among us, the patina occurs when the heated metal moves from its alpha phase onto its beta phase and then back again. I realize that this paragraph provides too much information, but I'm a titanium geek and I like talking about it.

So, since my foil is a bit cheaper than Josh's, and since I am doing the work, I can make these available for $8.00 each for BPL members ($10.00 for non-members), which includes shipping. I promise that these will function fine. The "pretty" one in the photo has probably been used for at least 50 boils, and it shows zero sign of wear. It likely will outlive your grandchildren.

If anyone is interested in purchasing one, you may contact me via PM, or via the e-mail address I posted in my last post.

Edited once again–this time to lower the prices a bit. After studying the numbers more thoroughly, I realized that I was asking a little too much. So they are now $8 each for BPL members, and $10 for non-members, which includes shipping to anywhere in the 50 States.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Gary

I can only applaud.

You know, you can buy curved tinsnips. Would they help with the inner edge? (More tools, more tools!)

Cheers

[Gary Dunckel]

Roger, thanks so much. Coming from such an accomplished inventor/designer as yourself, you made me swell up with pride. So, yes, tomorrow I need to do some serious shopping to see if any hardware store carries curved shears/scissors that has the perfect curve to it, non-serrated cutting edge, etc. My little Zia titanium empire (I'm a very tiny tadpole in a very huge pond) has been essentially based upon a couple pair of pliers, a ruler, the all-important Dremel tool, and a pair of kitchen scissors. Oh, yes, and a roll of painter's tape and some Sharpies. It's probably time that I stepped up and found the right tools, eh?

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Gary

I also frequent some CNC machining Forum web sites.
Here at BPL it's "More UL Gear!"; on the machining web sites it's "More Tools!".
My wife just mumbles something about "Toys for Boys".

Cheers

[Mark Jones]

Gary, I will take one of the hand cut disk. PM sent. Thanks.

[Gary Dunckel]

Mark, would you please e-mail me at my home? This morning I sent a PM to you, but this afternoon AOL kicked it back to me saying it was "undeliverable." You can reach me at this e-mail address: drzooz (at) aol (dot) com

I just now tried to re-send the original PM, but who knows what's up?

Can you tell that I don't like this cumbersome BPL PM system?

[Mark Jones]

Gary,

Payment sent. I am not a fan of PM either. Way too cumbersome.

Thanks.

Mark

[Terry G]

Gary,

Got back from a trip on Monday to a tyvek envelope with with one of your JBTT's. Good snug fit and works great. Thanks.

[Manfred]

Gary,

Thank you so much for sending me the riser disks – and even packed in a Tyvek envelope!
Yesterday I tested it with a JetBoil Sol Ti on a BRS-3000T and got a rolling boil in 1:58 min – admittedly in really warm weather here in California. I guess I should have done a second boil with the original stove, but was so excited about the result that I didn't try.

This creates a wonderful option to assemble a JetBoil system for under 9 oz for less than $60 by getting a JB Sol Al Companion cup for $38, a BRS-3000T for $11 and a riser disk for $10. A JB Zip would be roughly 33% heavier (12 oz) and roughly 33% more expensive ($80).

Thank you for making your riser disks available here on BPL!

Best Regards,

Manfred

[Gary Dunckel]

Thanks for your feedback–I'm glad that you like your Thingies! I think that they really do work, as they position the BRS burner at the right distance from the pot bottom. $59 is a decent price for the efficient lightweight package, with the extra benefit of the stove also working with whatever pot you want to use. Sure, the JB stoves have that adapter, but that is one heavy setup compared with what we are doing.

By the way, yesterday I saw my first Olicamp Ion stove in a store. It looked almost identical to our BRS-3000T stoves, but it had brass threads and also a very different burner head. I learned that this stove is actually a re-branded FMS-300T made by Fire Maple. The price is $50, and it weighed 1.6 oz. I'm thinking that whoever makes the BRS stoves for GearBest simply did a knock-off of the FMS-300T. If we learn over time that our BRS stoves perform fine, then it was $11 well spent. I wish I had an extra $50 to check out the Olicamp Ion's comparative performance, but really, I already have too many stoves. (I can already hear Hikin' Jim's reply: "Don't be a bloody fool, Gary, a man can't have too many stoves!").

One other thing I'd like to pass on to you–81% of the BPL members that have bought a Thingy chose to "gift" their payment to me. I surely appreciated that, and it shows how BPL people tend to take care of each other.

If any of you frequent other backpacking forums, I would appreciate your posting my contact info, as well as a link to this thread. I have some extra titanium foil, and I would be happy to make disks for others. But really, the whole idea was to make the Thingies available to the folks here at BPL. My thanks to you all for helping me with this fun experiment.

[Gary Dunckel]

Mark, I need your mailing address so I can send your pot riser Thingy. I had sent you a PM. Maybe you're out hiking?

[Manfred]

Since I posted my boil time in my prior post I was asked about the fuel consumption. Thus I ran a couple more tests to measure the gas consumption and find out the impact of different stove settings.

To get a baseline I first used he original JB stove. I took water from the faucet without measuring its temperature. As it is pretty warm here in California, the boil times are shorter than what you would get in the mountains boiling water from a stream.

1) JB Sol Ti stove – rolling boil in 1:40 min – 4 gram gas used

2) BRS-3000T with riser disk
a) high – rolling boil in 1:47 min – 6 gram gas used
b) medium – rolling boil in 2:29 min – 5 gram gas used
b) low – rolling boil in 3:48 min – 4 gram gas used

So in my unscientific tests I can boil pretty much as fast as the original JB stove if I'm willing to spend up to 50% more gas. Or I can boil with the same consumption of gas as the original JB stove if I'm willing to wait roughly twice as long for my boil.

From my point of view these are fantastic results.

Best Regards,

Manfred

[Gary Dunckel]

Thanks for posting your results, Manfred. Those are very consistent with what I've experienced. So the choice is whether you want speed or fuel efficiency.

By the way, I should give notice that I'm headed up to Montana tomorrow to snag some trail time in YNP and GNP. I'll probably be up there for 2-3 weeks, so I won't be able to mail out any more disks for awhile. It seems like everyone that wanted one has already contacted me anyway. I'll post here when I get back to Boulder. Thanks for the support on this Thingy Project! I have yet another funky idea for the BRS-3000T, and I will show y'all when I return.

[Gary Dunckel]

I just wanted to let people know that I'm back in Boulder again. So if anyone else wants one of these JB Riser Thingies, I can mail one right away.

[Michael Sirofchuck]

I just ordered four for myself and friends – great idea, great deal, glad Gary is doing this.

[Gordon Gray]

Cool, now you can come along to Fern Lake with us Saturday night! You know, a little decompression trip from your MT trip.

[Gary Dunckel]

Yeah, well, Gordon…I'm still a bit shell shocked over the fact that I almost snagged a 3 PM walk-up permit for the Reynolds Creek campsite in GNP last Sunday. My plan was to do that, sleep back in the Cut Bank campground Monday night, then do a 2-night hike to check out the Red Eagle Lake campsites Tues and Wed nights. As it happened, I did a mission shift and instead decided to go after the last 2 battleground sites of the epic flight of the Nez Perce that I hadn't been to. Had I done those backpack trips I would likely be a fried crispy critter right now, as the fire totally scorched that entire corridor this week, and I would have been caught in the middle of it.

I have a lot of things to catch up on here, and I won't be able to have any real fun for another week or so. But I hope you people enjoy your time at Fern Lake. That's not my favorite campsite in RMNP, but you will be GGGing with some great folks. Have some fun!

[Andrew Jennings]

Hey, Gary. I'll take a pot riser as well. You want to shoot me a PM with your PayPal info? Thanks!

[michael levi]

Gary D. – "By the way, yesterday I saw my first Olicamp Ion stove in a store. It looked almost identical to our BRS-3000T stoves, but it had brass threads and also a very different burner head. I learned that this stove is actually a re-branded FMS-300T made by Fire Maple. The price is $50, and it weighed 1.6 oz. I'm thinking that whoever makes the BRS stoves for GearBest simply did a knock-off of the FMS-300T."

They may be similar, but the Fire Maple stove is much nicer and more refined. It has for instance brass threads for the canister and lots of small functional and aesthetically pleasing details that really make it nice.

The Fire Maple 300t is more expensive, and the BRS3000t is just an amazing value at only $10 I repeat TEN FREAKING DOLLARS!

[Author]

Posts