Help me brainstorm a Caldera Cone (TM) for the FireLite 475ml Ti Trapper’s Mug

I am stumped. Why is a cone that much better than a very easily constructed cylinder?(with 2 pop rivets!) I made a Ti cylinder to fit my foster beer can , used 2 ti stakes thru the center to hold the pot. I use a thin wire bail to pick it up, and a glove to hold it, cheap, make the stove for Alcohol, esbit or even wood by making it taller or shorter.

Rand,

Have you thought anymore about offering the Fissure again? I'm very interested and have been trying for a couple weeks to make my own. VERY tricky!

I have a CC and love it but this sounds like a great idea.

What would you like us to do in helping to facilitate the process?

Any news?

– Dana

Ed
"I am stumped. Why is a cone that much better than a very easily constructed cylinder"
I have no technical knowledge or expertise but I have made many burners,stands and screens. So I have no scientific explanations for what works and what doesn't, all I know is if it does work or not.
The Caldera Cone ( for me) is more stable, efficient (in trapping the heat without snuffing the flame) and works better in the wind than any other combination I have tried. Several times I achieved faster or more economical burns with other set-ups but they all either let me down in the wind or are too fiddly /unpredictable at different temperatures. or simply use a lot more fuel.
If the extra safety and performance is worth the cost for you, well you need to work that out for yourself.
BTW I think that Rod's suggestion for a shorter cone using a silicone ring to hold it up has some merits.

Franco

I am SO stoked to see that my favorite thread is still alive! If we can keep this going a couple more months, we will have our first year anniversary! :-)

Ok….in doing my part to keep it alive, here are some answers to various questions, and a few teasers.

1) Why a cone? Well, the objective is to retain the heat inside the windscreen and hold it against as much of the pot surface as possible for as long as possible. If that is the criteria, then you want your windscreen to go all the way to the top lip of the pot. Now, since over 90% of the pots on the market are "straight walled"…..if you used a cylindrical windscreen supporting the pot from it's top lip….it would be in contact with the pot wall. Therefore, you would need to vent BELOW the pot and consequently dump the heat out too early. Or, with a standard cylindrical windscreen, you open it up away from the pot and the heat escapes out the top. The cone allows you to use a straight sided pot, supported from the top lip, and use venting at the top to throttle the heat loss and hold the hot air against the pot walls as long as possible.

2) Fissure…..well, we did make a few and have them for sale if you need one now. Check out the Wiki and it will lead you there. We also made some for the Evernew 1.4L tall pots but haven't made time to put the web page up yet. It's coming. Now, with that said, we have started investigating a different manufacturing technique….water jet cutting of aluminum sheet metal. Looks promising, but expensive. We would have to crank up the volume to get the price down….and even then….not sure how far down we could get it. Nevertheless, we bought a CAD system and are laying out profiles and talking to water jet vendors. How much would you be willing to pay? Keep in mind, as discussed earlier, this only works on pots that are tall/deep and have handles biased toward the top. So, we would probably focus on the Evernew line (640ml, 900ml, 1.4L) to start with. This will NEVER work for an MSR Kettle or any of the Snow Peak products (except the Mini Solo). So….would there be a market at $80? $70? Let me know.

3) Silicon bands and raised pots. Extremely interesting that you bring this up. Turns out, we just took delivery on a BIG box of custom made silicone "wrist" bands that will work in this arena. Clearly, since most pots are not small enough to use standard size wrist bands, and wrist bands are kinda tiny, we had to have a special mold made to build these monsters. For those of you that have seen our Caldera Keg, you will notice that we build the Fosters Can with a ridge at the 2 cup line to support the can on the cone. This is great for the UL crowd, but, if you crush your can, it is not field repairable. Enter the new wrist band! It is big enough to go around the Fosters without crushing it, tall enough to provide a ton of surface area so it won't slip, and if you crush your Fosters can, you can pick up a new one and just slip this band around it for the cone to support. In addition, this band will now allow us to put it around a Henie can and do a system for that one as well! (couldn't do it before because all the ridges in it prevented the cone from being able to seat anywhere). Including a picture below of the new MONSTER band with the original Caldera Keg upper lip guard inside for scale.

Now, my question to you is….how best to market it? Are our new wrist bands cool enough to buy as a part of a DIY kit? Should we sell them by themselves? Should we bundle them with the Caldera Keg? Would you pay a premium to have that with the Keg or would you prefer the option to pick one up ala-carte? For the Henie, what does that kit look like? Do we include the can (they are expensive!) or do we just provide the cone + stove + fuelbottle + monster-band and leave it up to the end user to figure out how to cut the lid off the Henie?

One other "wrist band" note. Suspending the pot outside of the cone makes it less efficient since the pot is not inside the heated cone environment. More packable for sure….but less efficient. There is also the issue of inconsistent placement of the band. With the Caldera the way it is now, we know exactly where the pot is relative to the ground and relative to the stove. If we allow field adjustable bands on pots and beer cans, performance predictability goes out the window.

So, here is a shot of the new band with the old one inside:

Please let me know what you think of the Fissure and Wrist band options. Fingers….cramping…up…now….must….stop….typing!

Rand :-)

I really like the idea of the MONSTER band with placement diagram for the Fosters and Heinie cans. Would that work? Let them get their own cans.

By the way, what do you guys do with all that beer? Assuming you sell hundreds of these rigs.

> By the way, what do you guys do with all that beer? Assuming you sell hundreds of these rigs.

Great question. Well….our original thought was to use recycled cans. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to find a large quantity of uncrushed, good quality Fosters cans. Further, we would prefer that the lids are removed with those side cutter openers and the top not popped, making it even harder. So, for the good of the company, and in the interest of high quality products for our customers, we individually and painstakingly open each full can, save the lid, and consume the contents. Now, we have partners and friends, so I don't think my liver is at risk, but it is a nice side benefit of the business!

Rand :-)

>we build the Fosters Can with a ridge at the 2 cup line to support the can on the cone.

I am wondering how you did that. Are these custom made for you? If so I cant imagine why you cant get empty cans. Or do you have a special die to make that ridge ? Thats seems more likely.

"we individually and painstakingly open each full can, save the lid, and consume the contents."

i finally found a job i want! i will send you a resume of beer drinking experience ASAP!

I'm late to the party but how about this? The cylinder would be the same height as the pot and the collar would hold the pot on top of the cylinder. They could be rolled up to fit in the pot. Just a concept.

how would your "collar" be supported and not simply flatten out like a saucer? I doubt the slide-seam connection would provide enough force to resist pulling apart when the pot is inserted and hung off of the rim.

Ideas?

i like the concept though :)

– Dana

my idea would be to place the collar inside the cylinder. Add some small small shelf angle clips around the quarter or third points of the inside of the cylinder. Or maybe even small round rivets :X

Good stuff…..we prototyped that a few years back and it eventually led us to the Fissure. This is extremely similar to the Fissure except the bottom cylinder is a cone.

What we found with this approach is:

1) The upper cone doesn't sit firmly/solidly on top of the lower cylinder

2) The upper cone tends to "collapse" the lower cylinder. The downward force of the cone translates into an inward force on the cylinder as the cylinder tries to "walk" its way up inside the cone.

3) The cylinder shape is not as structurally sound as the cone. We made some "cylinder only" designs as Ti-Tri prototypes for some readers here in the past, and what we found is the cylinder wants to "twist" under the weight of the pot/water. Not the cone though.

4) The cylinder bottom is not as wide as the cone and consequently makes it less stable…..regardless of the twisting or collapsing.

Great thought! Keep them coming!

Rand :-)

I have made my own cones and I use a buckle latch. It's really strong and easier to make than a dovetail latch.

This may work. If the collar cone can handle the downward pressure it could just sit right on top of the cylinder.

G'Day
I was wondering who drank all the Fosters, because even though its supposed to be an Aussie beer NO ONE drinks the rubbish over here and when it comes to drinking we have pretty low standards…
Darren

darren

what do you aussies drink? coopers? please don't say coors light.

Come on now, Foster's isn't that bad. Of corse my only requirement for beer is ……….cold. Some beer is better that other beer but any beer is better than no beer.

How do I buy one of those large rings. Seriously. PM me.

The idea I've been working on uses Kevlar tape in place of the ring. I allows my Titanium Kettle to sit higher in the cone.

… b u t … that silicone ring looks to me to be my fix.
Do you have a weight on the large ring?

Fosters diameter is about 2.9 inches
The silicone ring weighs .195 ounce

It's a basic "silicone wrist band", like the Livestrong bracelets and all the others. Walmart probably has something clever for a buck.

Matthew,
Read my response to your kevlar tape post on the Gear Spot. Don't raise your pot.

Greg:
Thank you for the diameter and weight. 2.9 inches seems small for my Titan Kettle.
Just to confirm, you are referring to the MONSTER wrist band posted in the above photograph, and not the standard wrist band size, correct?

Denis:
Thank you for the response in the post you referred to:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=9638

I have already stripped off my handle. I'm currently trying to find a way to remove the spot welds so I have a smooth pot.

Matthew,
Use a cut-off wheel on a Dremel Tool. Gently make a cut each side of each weld, then pop off.the bracket with a screwdriver. File the welds down using a good sharp file.

Exercise care with the Dremel Tool to avoid cutting through the pot wall. I've done five Ti pots in this manner. It's not difficult, just proceed slowly.

If you can't find Ti spokes use what ever's available.

snow peak titanium bowl is a smooth sided pot that weighs under 2oz and can hold 3 cups (i always use <2 so it may not be 3 exactly)and it cost around $15. Sell the titan and buy the bowl.

-Tim

Tim:
I'm sitting here with my wife reading your responses. Knowing now what I know about the Caldera Cone, I only wish I could have gotten this suggestion sooner.

My wife said in response to your post "Tim's $15 bowl idea is a LOT better than our $55 Titan Kettle. Why did we get the Titan Kettle again". *smiling*

Denis:
Thank you very much. This may be the only way to salvage the $55 I dropped on a Titan Kettle. I'm afraid even with the spot weld removed, it may not be as light or as large as the Snow Peak Tim's referring to.

…anyone want to buy a Titan Kettle? :)

downside to the bowl is no lid (can make your own from lots of things) and no handle, i use a utilakey or a cut down pot gripper. For $15ish it's hard to beat. I also like that it is wider than a mug for better heating on a wider variety of stoves.

-Tim

Matthew,
The Snow Peak bowl is a great product, at a great price. I modified mine as a windscreen for my Snow Peak Giga stove.

Remember though, there's no Caldera Cone for the Snow Peak bowl.