Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Looking around online, cookpots that fit the Ranger aesthetic are either absurdly heavy (cast iron) or absurdly expensive (copper).

I didn't like either option, so I decided to make my own copper pot.

Copper vessels can be found relatively cheaply online. Apparently there's a cocktail called a Moscow Mule which is served in a copper mug.



This mug cost just $15 and holds 22oz (650ml). That's a little small to cook in for my tastes, but not completely unworkable.

Of course, for campfire cooking, you need a lid. I bought a swatch of 24ga (0.5mm) copper to fashion into one. It's annoyingly expensive at $8--I'm sure you could find it cheaper.



It's very easy to cut with shears.



To shape the lid, I used a bit of unusual kit--a z-bender. It's designed to bend control surface rods for RC aircraft, but the upshot is that it can put two 90° angles into a piece of metal very precisely.





So there's a copper 'pot' suitable for boiling water on a campfire. However, copper is quite poisonous in anything more than trace doses, and a combination of heat and acid will dissolve copper and transfer it to your body quite readily. Therefore, copper cookware has to be lined with a non-reactive substance, most commonly tin.

I had a pound of tin lying around from...something, at some time. I forget. Anyway, plumbing solder would be a good bet if you don't have ready access to tin.



It turns out, melting tin and sloshing it around in your pot is not sufficient. It needs flux to bind the tin to the copper. The pros use sal amoniac, but all I had on hand was RadioShack electrical rosin...which worked just fine, actually.

IMPORTANT: The stove I'm doing this one is outside. No matter what flux you use, it smokes like Gandalf on a graveyard shift. If you do this, do it outside.



Done! It's got a nice, even coating of tin on the inside of the pot and lid. And by "nice and even" I mean "lumpy and pitted". I used too much tin and it's hard to remove once in there, so it's kind of glopped onto the sides a bit.

Still, it'll work. A solo cookpot for boiling water or cooking stew or porridge.

The next steps will be removing the mug handle (probably) and installing a bail and lid handle.

Very cool - thanks for sharing!

I found an unlined copper pot with a brass bail (probably a small planter) at Goodwill that I'm planning on trying to line, so this is very helpful to me! I need to get some tin; I read that solder can contain some less than desirable compounds, even if it's lead free.

A very valuable resource for this sort of thing is the safety data sheet, or SDS, for each product. For example, if I search "plumbing solder" one of the first results is Oatey lead-free solder. I search for "Oatey Lead-free solder SDS" and I get a document that says more or less exactly what's in it and how dangerous it is. In the example of this product, it's Almost entirely lead with small amounts (1-5%) of copper, silver, and bismuth. A little fiurther down, it says how toxic each of these metals is, though it only mentions their relative safety in the form of dust and vapor.

In terms of ingestion, tin's obviously fine, silver's safe in small amounts (though in extremely high doses it'll turn you blue), copper's not great (which is why we're lining this) but your body can handle the small amounts that might leach out of this solder, and bismuth is quite safe.

So whatever brand you have access to, you can look up the SDS and learn exactly what it's got in it.

Another tip: When trying to spread the tin around the inside of the vessel, a peice of steel wool clamped in a pair of needle-nosed pliers will help a lot.

Whoops! I said "almost entirely lead" when I meant tin. Sorry.

Well done!

Have any plans for a handle on that lid?

WOW. That's some serious dedication! Nicely done!

Did a little bit of research. (You know me by now.)
Moscow Mule mugs are made for use with adult beverages. Of course you don't boil your cocktail in the mug!
Here's a little about the issue:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... story.html

"An intact lining is important because many foods are acidic. Acid corrodes copper, producing toxic byproducts."

At any rate, I guess tinning with something that has lead in it, may be worse than leaving the copper uncovered.

BTW, the Moscow Mule mugs I've seen for sale at my liquor emporium seem to have been tin-lined.

If there are any ethnic grocery stores in your area, particularly Indian and Middle Eastern, you can generally find copper and stainless steel vessels of all descriptions.

Historical copper muckets are available but they're not cheap:
http://www.backwoodstin.com/index.htm?cat6.htm

That's about $47.

Backwoods is the best in my book, hands down. Odigan has one of his boilers, as does Ursus, and I have the small bean boiler. All excellent.

He maintains a rather lengthy backlog, though. He stopped taking orders awhile back for a bit because he made a bunch of stuff for The Revenant.

I hadn't seen these kettles. Very reasonable for how nice they look. Thanks, Kortoso.

Well done! Nothing like making something yourself - making the lid is awesome!


For off the shelf 18th c., I'm most partial to Peter Goebel's work at Goose Bay Workshops, with Westminster Forge a close second. But yes, neither are cheap.
I've not seen anything really good for Western European medieval that I recall, but some of the Turkish "flower pots" you see on eBay and such are perfect for the job. Many are even already tinned!

UPDATE: I removed the handle from the side of the mug and put a tab to lift the lid off the pot. The lid tab is made from a section of brazing rod and is bent so that it's easy to grip without touching the hot lid of the pot.

Very nice work. I'm glad to see it turned out so well.