Plastic replacement lid for Toaks 550mL pot??

[Packman Pete]

Howdy! I am wondering what other lids would fit on this pot. I know there has to be something that ‘snaps’ on, like a Pringle’s or Planter’s lid. I measured the outside diameter and it comes to 100mm.

Who can help a brother out?

 

Thanks,

Packmanpete

[Bob Shuff]

I have one of these.  It doesn’t snap on but the orange mesh toaks stuff sac holds it tight in place, including a cozy around my Toaks LITE 650 mug.

I’ve heard that the Sea-to-summit X-mug or X-bowl also fits well.  Sorry I couldn’t locate the specific thread.

 

[Matthew / BPL]

Four Dog makes a lid that fits it quite nicely and saves a few grams. I can weigh mine tomorrow if you’d like.

[Window walker]

I like to make pot lids out of aluminum flashing.  I carefully cut it so that it is just barely hanging off the edge of the pot, but leave 3 or four tabs that hang over enough to bend over the edge.  It creates sort of a spring loaded closure that snaps into place when done right, and it weighs less than a carbon fiber lid. Someone on bpl was nice enough to pif me some aluminum flashing a while back, maybe someone has some extra for you.

[robert k]

@ Pete

Getting a plastic lid to snap on to your Toaks 550 might depend on whether you want to do so with or without the Toaks lid still in place. A plastic lid from a 10.3-12 oz coffee can will snap on without the Toaks lid in place and maybe with it too, but it will not withstand the heat of boiling if that is your intention.

Yes, the Sea to Summit X-mug will also snap on ( more firmly ) and being silicone will withstand the heat of boiling when it is set on top inverted and flattened . Seen below snapped on to an Evernew 400 which has the same outside diameter as your Toaks 550 and many others. Hope this helps.

[Packman Pete]

Lots of good ideas!

Flashing with tabs sounds good. Coffee can lid sounds good, too.

I normally carry my esbit fuel and tri-wing stove in my pot. I want to ditch the Toaks lid and orange stuff sack and just use a new lid that snaps on so the stuff doesn’t fall out of the pot. And maybe flip the lid over and use it as a pot cover when I am boiling water. Actually, it never really boils, but does get pretty dang hot.

Any idea what brand of coffee can lid would fit?

 

[robert k]

Pete,

The coffee can lids do vary very slightly in diameter, but all three of the ones I tried snapped on. Safeway,Yuban and Maxwell House IIRC. But,again, the plastic lid ( flipped over or not ) has too low a melting point to be used on top of a cup while boiling/heating water….it will deform and fall into the pot. Silicone is the only soft/flexible material that I know of that can be used as both a snap on lid and a lid for boiling water.

[Matthew / BPL]

Just my $.02 but as an Esbit user I like a stuff sack to keep any residue out of my pot. I had Simply Light make a sack for which cost like $7 shipped (iirc) that weighs just a few grams. I like to have the sack made a little shorter than “full height” so it tightens around the pot keeping everything snug. This setup allows a really lightweight lid which can be used to boil.

The Sea to Summit mug is a nice option and clicks onto lots of pots but is a heavy solution. I’ve got one but I haven’t carried it since I went to the Toaks 550. It’s a bummer to me take such a lightweight cook set and then use such a heavy lid even if it does double duty as a mug.

[Gary Dunckel]

Robert, about the lid’s melting temperature–HDPE (#2) melts at 259* F, whereas LDPE (#4) melts at a slightly lower temperature of 230* F. I hit my local grocery store yesterday to try to find a clear lid the exact same size as the nut can lid (that was suggested on another thread here for use with a Jetboil pot). I pestered the lady shoppers about what products might have such a lid, figuring they would be more savvy than I. The usual suggestions were sour cream and yogurt containers, margarine tubs, and coffee cans, but none of them were the right size and none were clear. Then one lady suggested I look at the Crisco cans. Bingo! The lids of the small cans were exactly the same as the ones on the nut cans, except that they were clear (so that I might be able to see when the water was about to boil). Each of these lids were made of HDPE.

On the way home, I stopped at Walgreen’s to pick up a can of Ensure to portion out and vacuum-seal some breakfasts for an upcoming trip. When I got home I looked at the plastic lid on the can and found that it is also a perfect fit for a JB pot–identical to the nut and Crisco lids, except that it is LDPE. I don’t think I will even bother with testing it on my stove, as it likely won’t quite hold up to the heat as well as HDPE (but who knows?).

Anyway, my suggestion for finding a perfect lid for one’s pot is to embrace your inner geekiness and take the pot to the grocery store. Ask every lady you see in the aisles, ask the person stocking the shelves, and ask the checkout people–likely someone will help you figure it out. Most of my store’s employees know me, and they expect for me to come up with bizarre requests like this. If nothing else, I give them a quick lesson or two on how to lighten their packs in unique ways, and I get to visit with some nice strangers. Everybody wins.

A couple of days ago I tested a nut can lid on my JB to see if it might melt. I had punched a small vent hole in it. I ran the stove for two minutes after the boil was achieved, and it didn’t look like there was any melting at all. It got a bit soft of course, but when it cooled back down it wasn’t deformed at all.

[robert k]

Gary,

Good info, it certainly sounds like you put more effort into the search than I did. Ya, I took my Ti mug into the grocery store and walked the isles looking for removable plastic lids that looked like they might fit while trying to ignore the curious stares of the other shoppers . After a couple of minutes I lucked upon the coffee isle and found that several of the lids snapped on nicely. Not knowing the relative melting/deforming points of the various plastics and being a not too picky coffee drinker I bought several different cans ( the lids were different colors, opaque as well as translucent ) and tested the lids at home for heat resistance while boiling water in my Ti mug. I took the water temp to boiling because sometimes I like to boil as opposed to just heating. All the coffee can lids I tried deformed and drooped into the mug. But, that’s not to say that there isn’t another plastic lid out there that could have withstood the heat. And it sounds like you may have hit upon a better plastic lid via Crisco.

And as Mathew pointed out, an X-mug ( not to be confused with the X-cup ) is not the lightest option unless, like me, one wants a mug to boil water in while having a separate cup/mug to drink from , while remaining compact when stowed with maybe less fiddle factor,…plus it doesn’t rattle. But, the X-mug weighs a half ounce more that my Ti mug ! ;)

 

[Gary Dunckel]

Don’t get me wrong, Robert–I fully agree with your suggestion that silicone is the best of breed for this application. There are also other materials that can be used effectively. Here’s a photo of a couple that I’ve made. On the left is a simple silicone disk made from some sort of sheet used to protect a table from a hot dish. The handle had to be made from silicone tape, since the only thing that sticks to silicone is silicone. On the right is a lid that I made from a piece of oven liner with a duct tape handle. Some oven liners are thicker than others, therefore a bit less floppy . This one is pretty floppy, but the rolled edges help.

Then there is a stock UFO silicone lid that I punched a vent hole into (on the left), and a MYOG titanium foil lid with an “omega” handle with silicone tubing on the right.

The weights of these various lids are as follows:

UFO stock silicone lid–18.3 grams (ouch!)

My MYOG silicone lid with sil tape handle–10.4 grams

Josh Leavitt’s carbon fiber lid (no photo)–8.6 grams

Crisco/nut can lid (no photo–you can guess what it looks like)–6.3 grams

MYOG ti foil lid—6.1 grams

MYOG oven liner lid–2.7 grams

This morning I did a mega test of my new Crisco lid. I brought the water to a boil and then let it continue for several extra minutes to see what might happen. The lid softened considerably, especially around the edges where it touched the pot. The pressure of the boiling water forced the softened plastic lid off the pot in fairly dramatic fashion. Hot water was seeping out of the pot onto my table, which told me it was time to shut the stove off.  Once the lid cooled back down it returned to its original shape, and it was not damaged at all. I’m not convinced that the lid could have actually melted, but it is clear to me that one should turn the stove off as soon as a boil is reached. Once boiling water (201* F in my case, at an elevation of 5440′) softens the plastic lid’s rim, the seal will quickly be compromised. Then goofy things can happen.

This is all purely academic for me, as I just like to play around with different concepts. I will stick with my carbon fiber lid from Josh at Rura Locura. But I think there might be a use for one of these tight fitting snap-on plastic lids (with no vent hole). For example, pre-soaking pasta in my JB pot to keep the ants and squirrels from messing with it.

[robert k]

Gary, nice photos.  I like the brownish silicone disk on the left in your first photo and am wondering how you made the indent around the perimeter .Like you, I tried myog and made a lid from Al flashing with down-turned tabs ,but it didn’t snap on well enough for me. which led me on the quest for a plastic snap on lid. The problem with many materials including metals and plastic is that they lose their rigidity or strength when heated long before their melting point.

I’ve also tried thinner silicone “food saver” lids, but the one I was given was too flimsy. It snapped on nicely, withstood heat and held contents well, but needed support to keep from drooping into the mug. Pictured with a couple of Ti pegs, but really thin sticks would work just as well. Not ideal, but much lighter than an X-mug.

 

Oh well, we tried. Let us know if you come up with an elegant solution for the OP.

[Gary Dunckel]

Thanks, Robert. Nah, there are no indents on the brownish silicone lid. The silicone is flat. You can pretty much see through the silicone, although it is reinforced with something. The mat looks like clear silicone with a brown checkerboard reinforcement grid imbedded into it. What you are seeing is the rim of the pot through the sil lid.

As cute as I think that lid is, it is heavier than Josh’s CF lid, and the components are more expensive than what he charges for his lids ($12 plus tax for the sil sheet, and another $12 +tax for a 12′ piece of silicone tape). But then I get the leftovers for use in other projects. Silicone tape is my new favorite MYOG material for 2016–it has lots of uses.

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