knockoff titanium pot quality?

There are different grades of titanium used to make pots, tipically they contain 3 to 6% aluminium with a bit of vanedium or iron in the mix.

There is a very good chance that the better known brand use the 6% mix . (grade 5)

There is no scientific base to link using aluminium pots and getting alzheimer’s.

Throw it away…..no more worries. Inexpensive…..no great loss.

I have both and I find no functional difference between them, the Tomshoo is my “loaner” but really both are too small for my needs

First of all, the whole aluminium/alzheimers link is total crap. It has a single origin: an UNrefereed MSc paper by an incompetent student who claimed to have found traces of aluminium in Alzheimers plaques. Well, there was aluminium in his samples all right, but the student was responsible for the aluminium being there: he had used the wrong preparation techniques. Repeats of his experiments by professional researchers found zero traces of aluminium in fresh samples, and the source was then identified. There is NO link. (But it made a lovely near-hysterical bandwagon for a while.)

As for the comment that Chinese titanium may contain aluminium and other unsavoury metals – yes, it does. The much loved and widely used aerospace-quality Ti alloy (made in foundries around the world) called 6Al4V has Aluminium and Vanadium in it – deliberately. That is why the alloy has that name. Those alloying additions are what gives the 6Al4V titanium its superior performance. So anyone trying to belittle Chinese titanium alloys on these grounds is simply displaying an appalling ignorance. Dare I say Fake News? Well, maybe Stupid News?

Now, where do you think the various American vendors get all their Ti pots from? There are few factories in the world with the ability to form titanium into pots – very few. They are in China. So just saying that an American-branded Ti pot is superior to a Chinese-branded one is 99% ignorance.

If anyone can point to an American factory (IN America) which has started forming Ti pots I would be very interested. I do not mean just ‘branding’ imported pots with an American name: I mean actually MAKING Ti pots. The Chinese have made the investments and have very low labour costs: it would not be economic for any Western company to try to compete – so they don’t.

Cheers

Most all Ti stuff, including the much lauded Toaks, is made in China.

Personally, I’m a Japanese metals fan and I intentionally buy Snow Peak Ti (and Montbell) because it’s Japanese. The quality surpasses Toaks IMO, and I’ll take a Japanese sourced and mf’d item any day over one from China. Of course it’s extremely difficult to avoid Chinese made stuff, but when I can I do so.

That’s my possibly irrational prejudice and I’m sticking with it :)

@Brad

The SnowPeak GST-100 stove was, for a long time, my Gold Standard for quality.

Cheers

Here is a primer on titanium 6AL4V: http://www.aerospacemetals.com/titanium-ti-6al-4v-ams-4911.html

In short, there are many different alloys of ti in the 6AL4V range. Basicly, 6% aluminum and 4% vanadium. The other suff, Molybdenum, Chrome, Tin, etc is often what makes the difference between grades of 6AL4V ti, two major types that I know of… But, there are many grades of ti that are NOT of the same toughness as 6AL4V. Read the one page summary. Basically, 6-4 is of medium strength.

Other grades are usually listed, since they are one family. Tin is toxic because it interferes with your blood, loosely speaking. Small amounts are fine. Far more toxic than aluminum. But, it is possible to use this grade, too.  There are softer and harder alloys than 6-4.

A lot of the Ti pots and mugs come from Suzhou Kingsound Titanium-Tech Inc.

They also  sell directly using the Tibetan brand.

Tibetan and Toaks 1100mm

It should also be remembered that a metal which may be toxic in one form is often (usually) not toxic at all in an alloy.

Mercury is toxic to humans in some organic forms (eg methyl mercury, as in Minamata Disease), but hundreds of years of use of mercury amalgam in teeth has not shown any toxicity.

The difference is that in an alloy the element is locked up, atom by atom, in a crystal structure. It cannot ‘leach’ out. Of course, if you start to smelt the alloy, things change.

Cheers

Very true, Roger. The small amount of leaching with Sn is not toxic. (Well, at least within APA standards.)

Roger
Come on, don’t you read the internet? There are millions of cases of neurological diseases and deaths every year from silver/mercury amalgam fills! The internet says one of the symptoms of mercury toxicity from fillings is excessive shyness and social withdraw. This probably explains my desire to hike solo. So, I had my metal fillings replaced with plastic and lost 3.7 grams. I now hike farther each day and hike with new friends. I drink from steel bottles to avoid dementia so I remember my hikes better. You really should look into this. (tongue in cheek in case it is not obvious)

Diff standards in Australia :)

The internet says one of the symptoms of mercury toxicity from fillings is excessive shyness and social withdraw. This probably explains my desire to hike solo.

The alternate explanation is that the source of these neurological problems lies in excessive use of the internet. That would explain a lot.

Cheers

I have one of the first generation BPL pots, that I am sure was made in China, as well as an Evernew pot that was made in Japan.  They are slightly different colors (the BPL is darker) and the BPL pot does seem to scratch easier, but functionally I can’t tell a difference at all.  The BPL pot is ~13 years old, and I have no reason to believe that in 40 years, my kids will still be able to use it.

Russell, good news, the plastic lid from Southern Grove Raisins, sold by aldis, fits on the Toaks 550, 650 and 750 while the pot lid is in place. No need for a stuff sack to hold everything in the pot. Just tried this today. Mark this page in your “favorites”

Send me your Tomshoo 750 and I’ll trade for a Toaks 750 no handles. No need to worry about alzheimers ;)

Thanks for the info, I knew there would be some wisdom to mine on this forum about my question.

my previous post didn’t publish: but I understand that toaks is from China, grade 1-2 and I am not dismissing their quality, it just seems to be a bold difference between tomshoo and toaks in finish and sensitivity to brillopads and spoon scratches, and with the weight difference I presume it’s of a different lower quality metal recipe.  anyway I remember reading about one of those metal additives causing mental conditions, shorter term than alzheimers. I’m not worried about aluminum, it’it’s the other lesser known mystery metals that tickle my ignorant concern.

Thanks again for the trade offer, but my pots are caldera cone ribbed and I love being able to cook 2 cups of rice on 1/2oz of alcohol in my 550ml while working and not having time to prepare food.

As for using these pots everyday, I’ll let you guys know when my reality starts slipping, and be sure to blame it on my discount ti pot for some heated discussion.

Oh i realized it’s you zelph! Quality setup, use it nearly everyday. And i found that long grain rice filled to the top of the caldera rib, then adding water just below the handles with 1/2oz alcohol can cook the 2 cups of rice perfectly! Protip

“hundreds of years of use of mercury amalgam in teeth has not shown any toxicity.”

I know a toxicologist who did a PHD on this who begs to differ – he showed me a bibliography he built up of over 800 studies that prove otherwise. He also placed a piece of dental amalgam in a vice, and pure mercury flowed out under minimal pressure. He also measured mercury vapour in the mouth as a result of chewing.

Dental amalgam is a relatively soft lattice, not a solid alloy in the commonly understood meaning of the word.

There is enough official concern about toxicity for Norway to institute a complete ban on amalgam, and the EU to ban amalgam for children and pregnant/breastfeeding women.

He also placed a piece of dental amalgam in a vice, and pure mercury flowed out under minimal pressure.
Does this appear in a refereed publication? Or is it just anecdotal?

a bibliography he built up of over 800 studies that prove otherwise
Has this bibliography been published in a refereed journal, or is it just a collection of unsupported (internet?) anecdotes?

I cannot imagine a genuine researcher (or a dentist) being willing to sit on such explosive evidence and not publish it in a refereed journal. He would get instant fame on publication. On the other hand, unsubstantiated stories about things broadcast on the internet are available in very generous supply, often mixed in with anti-vaxx stories.

Anyhow, I am sure millions of people have put the amalgam in their teeth under high pressure, and afaik there have not been any verified reports of people spitting out mercury.

Sorry, but that stretches my credulity a shade too far.
Cheers

This was a PHD awarded by a major UK university. The citations were all peer-reviewed, though many were in German, as there has been more concern in Europe. I skimmed it and found it convincing. And as I said, he gave me practical demonstrations that mercury is not contained securely within amalgam.

If there are no concerns, why are national and international health authorities beginning to ban the use of amalgam?

There’s a lot of history and politics involved – the ADA was set up specifically to defend the use of amalgam dentistry. Their motive was to make dentistry more affordable than gold-based dentistry, but the mainstream profession at the time had banned the use of such a toxic material in direct contact with body tissue, which is why practitioners using amalgam had to break away.

In the opinion of the toxicologist who wrote the doctorate,  the profession is covering up in the same way as the cigarette industry covered up for decades until it became impossible to hold the line. In his view, the ADA is running scared of the potential for a humongous class action against them.

Now that national bodies are moving against amalgam, it will be interesting to see how this develops.

PS – let’s not derail the thread, but I do have a personal anecdote. I was displaying strange symptoms after having a couple of large mercury fillings, which is why I was referred to the toxicologist.

The samples sent to a reputed lab gave such a high reading for mercury that they ran the test again to confirm. Then they had the tests reviewed by the supervising professor, who marked the result with three exclamation marks. Samples from my mouth showed high levels of mercury vapour.

I was poisoned by my dentist…

Hi Geoff

Sounds bad.
I would want to have your case examined a bit more carefully. IF (IF) your dentist put too much mercury in the mix, or did not mix it long enough, THEN your results are very possible (and bad).

I am quite willing to believe the above, while noting the millions for whom this has never been a problem. Poor training or unprofessional performance maybe? But that in itself remains a problem of course.

Cheers

My dentist does not think mercury-based fillings should stay in one’s mouth, and his conviction is sincerely held. I had all mine out some years back, my wife just last month. Better safe than sorry…

Roger

My last word, because it’s a useful thread and I don’t want to derail it.

If there’s no problem, please explain why Norway, Sweden, Germany and Denmark are banning amalgam dentistry completely, and the EU is banning it for children? At the time, I researched it carefully and there really is a widespread issue. At one point, we accepted fags and leaded fuel and asbestos and DDT and BPA and dioxins. Mercury-based dentistry is already joining this hall of shame. It’s also poisoning the dentists themselves, but that’s another issue.

Why would you want a highly toxic metal in long-term contact with your body tissues? Why are you so convinced that the mercury is trapped in the matrix when 20 seconds with a vice will prove otherwise? It’s pretty sobering to see globules of mercury being squeezed out of the amalgam.