FireLite 550 Pots

>"Surely someone can figure out a way to yank the offending handles"

It'd be easy enough to remove the wire handles. It still leaves a good bit of weight in the spot welded mounting flange though. Any method that would remove the flange would be ugly (YMMV).

I don't understand the pricing. This quote "experimental design manufactured in a small production run" doesn't make sense to me. The pots are the same except a manufacturing step (putting handles on) is omitted. Why would leaving out a step (and material) drive the price of manufacturing up?

Anyway, I love my UL so much that I bit the bullet and went for the SUL. This is a really nice little pot, with or without!

BTW I found that the 550 in a AGG cozy nests perfectly in the 1100. I don't know that I'll ever carry it that way, but I can ;).

"It still leaves a good bit of weight in the spot welded mounting flange though."

The pot weighs all of 2.5 oz with handle and 1.9 oz without. I dare say the two handles account for most of that 0.6 oz difference. So we're talking about 0.2 oz at the very most!

Let's face it — we are all a bunch of sickos! :)

>"Let's face it — we are all a bunch of sickos! :)"

Okay, I admit it. Well, that wasn't too bad.

Now back to the pot. Another good reason for the SUL pot is, it slips into the cozy easier and if you want to store a windscreen wrapped around it you can.

Did I mention that I love this pot? ;)

Hi Guys-

Take a look at this old thread.

I was able to pop the welds on the base designs 1L pot (very similar to the Firelite) to remove the handles.

Cheers,

-Mike

>"Take a look at this old thread."

Hi Mike,
I remember that old thread. Seems like popping the welds is a bit of a crap shoot. It all depends on how much penetration the weld has. I know others have put holes in their pots trying to "pop" the weld. The 550 looks to have very little penetration so it may not be too bad. Still, I'll pass.

You did end up with a very light 1 liter pot though.

In my experience with production runs, it's always more expensive to make less than more. For example, in DVD replication it's half the price per unit if you buy twice as many.

>"In my experience with production runs, it's always more expensive to make less than more."

I don't want to get into a deep discussion about this. I'll just point out… the pots are already being manufactured. The partially unfinished product, with no handles, is more expensive than the finished product with handles.

Regardless, I paid my money and I'm a happy camper. No problems here.

Sam's in love. Let him enjoy his pot! :)

Well, I suppose it really depends on the process they use. Just because they're not adding handles, doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be cheaper. It might depend on how they have to set up the machinery, etc. Like I said, I'm just basing my opinion on what I know of some industries like fly fishing equipment, DVDs, etc. Sometimes there can actually be more work involved in setting up the equipment to not add something extra…especially on a smaller run. Just a guess. I'm not claiming to be an expert on this or anything.

As always Ben and Jason… I appreciate your comments.

Now, s l o w l y step away from my pot…no sudden moves. I've got a Mini-Bic and I'm not afraid to use it ;)

Never! No funny stuff now, ya hear! Or there's gonna be trouble, see? Yeah, that's right. Trouble!

Since you've got BOTH the 500 and the 550, why don't you do something constructive and post a few comparison pics, huh?

Ben,
I just posted a comparison of sorts. Check that out. I'm too lazy to take pictures tonight!