Double walled mini volcano kettle

[Dylan Snodgrass]

I've been following Devin and his Backcountry Boiler since it started. I admire the craftsmanship, and entrepreneurial spirit he has shown us. When Ti Goat started selling the mKettle I got totally bent out of shape and fired off an email to them. Below is my correspondence with Ti Goat. I'm not sure if it was the right thing to do… it sure didn't make me feel any better. The only thing I know is that it felt really good to order a Backcountry Boiler!

My email to Ti Goat:

Titanium goat,

Bummer you are selling the mKettle. It's a blatant rip off of the Backcountry Boiler. I'm only one little consumer but I'll be taking my business elsewhere.

-Dylan Snodgrass

Ti Goat response:

Understood, Did you see the disclaimer on our website? We provide The Boiler Werks with free advertising, find me another company that would do that. Will you be taking your business to one of the cottage companies that steals from us?

Thanks, Josh

[Franco Darioli]

From what I understood , Josh at Ti Goat already had ordered his stock of the other kettle by the time he was made aware of the situation.
I too feel disappointed but you can't change the past, I just hope that it will be rectified once the present stock is gone.
In the meantime I will be ordering some bits and pieces from Ti Goat because …they have them and have been very please with the stuff I bought from them before .
Franco

[Hikin’ Jim]

Will you be taking your business to one of the cottage companies that steals from us?

Thanks, Josh

Josh wrote something similar to me. Clearly, he resents it when other companies steal from Ti Goat. I challenged him therefore to discontinue the mKettle. He ought not engage in the very practice he condemns in others.

HJ

[Hikin’ Jim]

Who makes a cheap knock off of the TiGoat stoves ?

The stove on Ti Goat is the cheap knock off. The real one is available here on BPL

You can read about how the design was stolen at this link.

HJ

[Josh Leavitt]

Jim

Lets do this in the open, rather than you playing this public and private, and not fully representing my responses.

Once and for all, are you calling me a thief? You keep implying just that. That is a very strong statement and accusation, I know, I'm known for making very strong statements and accusations.

Josh

[Hikin’ Jim]

Josh,

By no means am I calling you a thief. If anyone is a thief it's the bozo who ripped off Devon's design.

What I am saying is that you shouldn't sully yourself and the good name of Ti Goat by associating with such a rip off. That's really all I'm saying.

HJ

[Josh Leavitt]

Go boycott Darren and mKettle.

We recieved a few comments from people after placing the mKettle on our website. After digging into the issue, and emailing with Devin, maker of the Backcountry Boiler, we placed a statement with a link to the Backcountry Boiler on the mKettle page, on the TiGoat site. We even asked Devin if we could retail the Backcountry Boiler instead of the mKettle, but Devin declined because he already had someone else that was going to be selling them, BPL. If I remember right, Ryan really liked that mKettle. So Darren at mKettle really does not like the fact that we are currently advertising for the Backcountry Boiler, and a hand full of vocal people are displeased with the fact that we are carrying the mKettle.

Did I mention that we dont build the mKettle, and are only retailers of it? Did I mention about how we point people to the Backcountry Boiler on our website? Quite unprecedented if I might say so myself.

So considering the kind of BS that occurrs daily in this industry, and on this board, really? I'm the funkin' bad guy?

[Hikin’ Jim]

I'm not sure that you're the bad guy at all Josh, but at the same time I don't like to see this Darren fellow succeed in ripping off Devon nor do I think it works in your favor to associate yourself or TiGoat with Darren and the mKettle.

Credit where credit is due: It is a good thing that you put a link to the real McCoy, the Backcountry Boiler website.

May the best kettle win,

HJ

[Devin Montgomery]

Hi All,

First of all, I really appreciate all this support. The guy making this knock-off was really banking on the fact that nobody would notice. Boy has he been proven wrong. But as far as I can tell, there's only one person that's acted unscrupulously in this whole thing, and it's him.

Titanium Goat are good people. As Josh said, he emailed me about the situation and posted the notice on his website. Caught unaware, and already invested in inventory, they have done a lot more than most would to make it right. All signs point to them being really positive, contributing members of the independent manufacturing community. Aside from their own, really awesome products, they've partnered with Trail Designs on the Tri-Ti, Tenkara on the Yagi, and both Jacks'R'Better and Javan on quilts.

They've been been trying to do good, but caught a crab on this one. With the exception of one product, I would buy any of their fine goods in a heartbeat, and would be glad to send the business their way.

I think there's something really exciting and important going on in the independent gear manufacturing community. Let's not let one bad actor do any more damage than has already been done.

Best,
Devin

[al b]

My "2 simpler designs for manufacture and myog" post seems to have been lost beneath the ti-goat posts.

[Josh Leavitt]

Devin

Thanks for the mention…….

[Josh Leavitt]

As is the case with these kinds of things, one action leads to another, leads to a thought, raises questions, things come to fruition, things get complicated. In the spirit of this, we've had some actions, lead to some thoughts, that lead to some tangible results that were spawned by all of this. http://www.titaniumgoat.com/Tii-Kettle.html

[Hikin’ Jim]

Devin, that was a very gracious post.

HJ

[Hikin’ Jim]

Wow. Any photos of it in use?

HJ

[John Nausieda]

I think it is time for the Western Double wall kettle to meet its Eastern cousin the Shabu Shabu or Mongolian Hotpot. I've been using a brass one for over twenty years but converted to an electric with a divided chamber after using one in Beijing. Some have longish chimneys , some take sterno, many in China burn coal. For large groups this might be a fusion cooker that can do freezer bags or water or Mongolian or Korean hotpot with beef, Tofu, veggies ,noodles etc.Low cost,choice of sizes, choice of fuels, can eliminate many other cook pots, built in windscreen , stable . Here's a sample
http://www.amazon.com/inch-Thai-Aluminum-Hotpot-serves/dp/B00012F3O0/ref=lh_ni_t_

[Devin Montgomery]

Hi Josh,

Well, that's not exactly the thing I would have learned from all of this. But good luck with it, anyway.

[Devin Montgomery]

Alan – sorry about missing that post. If I'm understanding what you're describing in the first part, it would actually be a lot more expensive to manufacture. I'd love to see the second, MYOG version in action. It sounds a bit complicated, but would probably be pretty fun to make anyway.

John – Heck yeah, that's right along the lines of the Samovar, only I've only seen Samovars for big big bucks. At $15, the price sure is right on that one!

[Patrick Mullen]

Josh,

Is the tangible result to make your own copy of Devin's design? Seems like an odd response to me . . ..

[BlackHatGuy]

Golly gee, let's not start this again….

[Travis Leanna]

I've silently been following this thread. After reading Devin's post basically clearing TiGoat of any wrongdoing, as well as graciously offering his support to the company, I was quite impressed by the way things were handled by both parties.

Well, that was short lived.

I lost a lot of respect for TiGoat when I saw their "7 hour in the making" copy of this style kettle. I agree completely with Devin when he says "Well, that's not exactly the thing I would have learned from all of this."

Legally, they may be in the clear to do this, but I doubt that'll sit well within this community. I for one think its poor form.

If I had an extra $100 something dollars for Devin's kettle, I'd buy one just out of principle.

[EndoftheTrail]

Jumped in late and read all 5 pages in one fell swoop. Still wondering when (or if) the mKettle guy from Britain will tell us his side of the story? His silence is deafening…

[Jake Palmer]

"Almost 7 hours in the making"

This makes me sad that I purchased a quilt from TiGoat a few months ago. If I had known the proprietor was like this I would have taken my business elsewhere. I'll be certain to let all my friends know not to spend money at TiGoat.

[Josh Leavitt]

I guess I should clarify about the 7 hours. On Saturday morning my father and I were going over our hate mail, and I was explaining to him about the boycott. BTW we have decided to support the boycott, and will not be purchasing anything from Titanium Goat. So after running my father through the full history of the back country boiler, we began to share different ideas for manufacturing a chimney kettle, having the design issues of kettles fresh on the brain and all. This discussion of design started ~noon, and I had a kettle built by 7ish.

I am at a bit of a loss here, in regards to some peoples reactions to this. The design, manufacturing process, name, and use of materials in the Tii Kettle is completly novel, and unique, with improved use of concept. I was under the impression that the problem with the mKettle is that it was a blatant, exact copy/ripoff of the backcountry boiler, correct? We had hoped that the Tii Kettle would be an acceptable replacement, that was not encumbered by those issues. We had hoped that we had hit all the high points that embody the Cottage gear industry and community with this offering. Do the issues with mKettle go beyond the use of Devin's design? Because it appears that when the issue of copying Devin's design is removed from the equation, this community still takes issue.

[Miguel Arboleda]

.

[BlackHatGuy]

"Do the issues with mKettle go beyond the use of Devin's design?"

Methinks, perhaps, timing. And, perhaps, expectations on what someone would see when they went to the included link. People's hackles are already up, it's easier to lean toward the side of further irritation in such circumstances. Especially when some, ignorant of all the facts, are already doing the hate thing because you're carrying the mKettle.

But I agree with much of what you say here. The issue I had with the mKettle is that is was not only a blatant ripoff of Devin's design, but that the 'maker' picked Devin's brain ahead of time – due to Devin's good nature – and then used that info to put out his blatant ripoff.

As far as I can tell, (being ignorant of design and such overall), you took the chimney concept and created your own design, just as Devin did. Just as there are multiple designs on the 'teepee' concept in the marketplace, and the Lightheart is based on the Wanderlust (if I have that one correct), and there are various esbit stoves (there must have been a 'first' one), etc.

But had there been no mKettle, I believe the reaction would have been very different to the Tii Kettle from much of this community.

I bought one of Devin's Backcountry Boilers. I can't wait to get it and take it to the woods and use it. From everything I've seen so far, it's a gorgeous piece of kit and I want to show it off! I'll also buy, if available, one of the Tii Kettles. Looks like a neat design and I'm intrigued about using esbit with it.

We're a big community, believe it or not. There's room for more than one chimney-type stove.

So let's, perhaps, stop all the hating. Isn't there enough of that in our daily lives already?

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