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Titanium Goat Vortex Stove
Manufacturer: Titanium Goat (www.titaniumgoat.com)

Model: (Large) Vortex Titanium Stove

Specifics: 8ft ti-pipe, ti-damper, spark arrestor add-on, standard non folding legs.

Dimensions:
7"x8.5"x15" fire box, 11" tall when assembled (less chimney length)
Take down size: stove - 1"x8.5"x15" chimney - 2"x12"
Spark arrestor, damper, screws, and retainer rings are in separate stuff
sack measuring 6" x 4".
Pic1: Fresh out of the box (1 litre Nalgene bottle in photo for scale)

Out of the Box: Everything is beautiful. Shiny, CRISP! clean titanium. The stove comes in a large fairly heavy and rugged ripstop nylon stuff sack. The smaller stuff sack appears to be 1.1oz silnylon. The stove itself is secured by a very light and extremely functional webbing and velcro system. Very nice.
The chimney pipe also comes in a heavy duty cordura like material with velcro straps that is also oversized so you can stuff material inside the chimney pipe. After only one burn this feature proves very handy in keeping things clean when stowed.

Stove assembly took aprox 10 minutes first time. About 4 minutes 2nd time. And just under 2 minutes 3rd time. The assembled stove is a work of art. The fitting is precise. Screw holes line up exactly. There are no burrs or tooling marks anywhere. The holes in the stove have been expertly punched. From the die stamped door to the tricky sidewall reinforcement reliefs done on a brake, the stove leaves zero doubt it was produced in a machine shop. Everything is trim and proper. Stripped of all unnecessary weight and fanfare, it has a plain and functional look.


*NOTE* - First time assembly of the titanium chimney pipe is ... in a nutshell .... a living hell. I'm not going to sugar coat this at all. Having worked now 7 yrs in the HVAC industry assembling ductwork and piping I would like to think I know a good bit more than the average joe about working with light gauge metals. The pipe comes rolled along the 12" width. When you first unroll it, you have to get it to roll the opposite way along the 8ft span. The instructions provided by titanium goat might, possibly, maybe work okay for the stainless steel version of T.G. chimney pipe, but are completely worthless for the ti-pipe. For me to say that you will have difficulty rolling the ti-pipe along the 8ft side while avoiding sharp creases and dents in the pipe ... would be the understatement of the century. I spent 2 hrs trying to roll the pipe avoiding unsightly blemishes. I was NOT successful.

After some thought and further testing, here is the best method I can suggest for first time assembly:

- buy yourself 8ft of 2" ABS pipe.  You can cut a notch down the length of the pipe with a jig saw and insert the long edge of the sheet metal into the notch to assist in rolling.  Or you can use the pipe uncut, and slowly begin rolling your pipe into shape around the ABS pipe to get the retainer rings on.

If you don't care so much, get at least two more people to help you roll the first time. I don't really care, mine looks a bit battle scarred... and well earned at that. I wont even begin to describe the nightmare that is trying to insert spark arrestor and damper the first time, or getting all 8 retainer rings on.


Using the Stove the First Time:
Finally the first burn. I started very slowly, with very controlled heat. Note the slow blueing of the metal. I love to watch virgin Ti get worked in. So many colors as the oils burn off. Zero warping after 20 minutes and a 1/2 full fire box. I shut the damper in stages and continued to allow stove temp to rise while monitoring surface temps with a laser thermometer. At or near the 1 hr mark I maintained a 1/2 full firebox and shut the damper completely. Some slight warping on the top of the fire box and significant warping to the bottom of the box. Using the good old Japanese water technique, I was able to shock the metal back into almost perfect form. If you use this technique improperly, you can cause worse damage.  Be careful.  Read up on the technique first if you are inexperienced.

Safety: Don't do what I did and leave nothing supporing the 8ft of chimney. It gets REALLY!  hot. I had to quickly round up garden implements to support the pipe in the slight breeze. Wearing leather roper gloves, I could only touch the pipe for a couple of seconds at most. I would recommend heavy heat resistant gloves and having some metal implements on hand to make emergency adjustments.

Final Comments on Initial Review:
After first take-down, I did try assembling the pipe again. And yes, after being set by first heat treatment, it was way easier. Next burn I will turn the pipe end for end to avoid uneven heating. It will likely take a couple burns before the pipe assembles flawlessly.
Field Testing The Stove

Test 1: The Benchmark

1. - Note: - In all the following tests, the wood used in the stove is Ontario red maple 12-14" rounds, dried 2 yrs and split just prior to testing. For the first set of tests, I will be running the stove with full open damper, front door full open. The pieces of wood will be lit, and left to burn of their own accord with no further stoking or tending to interfere with natural burn.

2. - Handy little field tip I noted right away. In the future when I am in the bush, any cut piece of wood that is shorter than the distance between my tomahawk head and the hand grip, will fit in the stove. This will be good to remember. Cutting logs this short and splitting to aprox 1.5-2" diameter is hard work. I will later have to seriously compare the weight and performance issues between my two favorite field choppers, the granfors bruks mini and the 19" coldsteel trailhawk tomahawk

3. - The first burn piece measures a roughly equilateral triangle 4"x4"x4" x 12" long. The door in the ti goat stove is exactly 3" in diameter. This is a major factor for overall burn time as it limits the overall size of wood that can be loaded into the stove. At 12" long, I cut the piece in half and shaved off 2,3 kindling size pieces to assist ignition.

4. - In all burns I have added 3 pine cones to assist in initial ignition. As all of my data begins at the 10 minute mark this should not greatly affect overall values. (okay fine, in truth, the wife was on my case to get rid of all the pine cones in the yard.. so I had decided to burn some, and throw the rest in my annoying neighbours yard out of sheer boredom in babysitting the following hours of stove tests )

5. - Temperatures of the stove were recorded using a UEI INF-151 digital laser thermometer. I measured temperatures from the top surface of the stove, in aprox the same spot on the surface every time. In hind-sight I should have chose the exact centre of the top of the stove. Worth noting, the temps on the top surface of the stove during testing would vary as much as 85 deg depending on position of the beam. Hottest temps were recorded directly on the flue damper in both tests, and coolest temps at the top front edge nearest the open door. This was predictable with an open damper and open door.

6. - Additional temps were taken from 4ft above the stove on the chimney pipe, and again at 6ft on the chimney pipe. The reason I chose the 6ft mark is because this is the height at which my ti-chimney pipe will exit the roof of my hammock-tent through the stove jack. I was very interested to gather temp data on this spot.

7. - In the second test burn, I tried to establish an amount of wood that could be defined as a "fully loaded stove". The following represents a VERY conservative figure. You could quite easily add more wood to the stove after a few minutes of burn time. To stay true to my original test parameters, since I was not allowed to add more wood after ignition, nor shift position of any of the burning pieces, the following will define my "fully loaded condition" for benchmark purposes. 5 pieces of wood in a bundle roughly 7"x7"x12" long.
The two largest pieces on the bottom just fit through the door. Picture was taken near the end of test 1. The stove was fully extinguished before relighting for test 2. At ignition the surface temp of the stove was still near 100deg F.

8. - The test data. Self explanatory.
Interpretation of the Temp Data :     (Test 1 & 2)

The size of the wood is a critical factor in maintaining high output temperature. If you look at test 1, there is a major temp drop between the 20 and 30 minute mark. Likewise in test 2 between the 30 and 45 minute mark. This is because during these times, the flame was fully extinguished, and the stove was running only on a well drafting glowing coal bed. If I were to add a large piece of wood during these time periods, it is unlikely that it would simply kindle into flame. More likely I would need to stoke the fire considerably if I wanted to maintain a high output temperature as in the 20 minute marks for both tests.

In the second test I had two pieces of wood near the maximum size that could be fit through the door opening. Note from the temp data in test 2, that as a result, the larger pieces of wood were able to maintain high output temperatures for much longer duration than smaller pieces of wood that burned hotter, but extinguished quickly.

Making these observations now, will greatly affect how I attack the problem of finding the most efficient burn possible with this stove. I am also eager to find the results of temperature output once I limit airflow closing the damper in the next set of tests. I also now have a good idea of how I will go about producing the highest possible output temperature with the stove.

I have a major concern at this point. I recorded some very high temps at the 6ft height. I really have some reserves about the fireproof jack that the chimney will be exiting the tarp through. You can bet, my first test next week inside the tarp with the stove.... I won't be sleeping. Maybe it is silly to worry so much. But, in my first 4 burns, I have had the stove get cherry red, right up to the 4ft mark. Maybe Woodswalker can put my fears to rest, but I think, I will have to do alot of backyard testing with my rig before it sees real field action. I want this to be safe enough to have my daughter in it, and be safe to the surrounding forest.

Photographing is a real pain in the dark. There were so many cool things it was doing I couldn't capture an image of. I had a cone of orange exhaust that looked very much like a jet engine on afterburn coming out of my spark arrestor at the top of the chimney. This is 8ft high. .....crazy. But cool.

Final comments: - This stove was originally described to me as "a campfire in a box". I was most surprised to discover from these early tests, that the stove does in fact perform more as a full sized wood stove, and much less as a contained campfire. It is my gut feeling that I will be able to achieve some impressive efficiency results with minimal feeding/stoking of the fire. My end goal with the efficiency testing will be to figure out, how feasible it is to run the stove all night long, providing comfortable heat in winter conditions with minimal fire tending. As a best case scenario I hope to be able to establish through testing, 3hrs of sleep between fire tending. But finding those results will have to wait several more months of course. Lots to play with in the interim.