Rudd Van Tiels views on the stove.
This is a review
about the Seek outside titanium stove, size large with a 11 feet long flue pipe
at around 1 degrees Celsius we decide that it was finally time to give the
stove its final test, after having had a good amount of burns already it was no
longer an off the shelf model but a used stove making for a more accurate test.
at first while assembling the stove there seemed to be a fair amount of gaps
between the bottom panels and the sides which initially worried me in context
with the performance of the stove, also the seal between the flue pipe and the
top panel worried me on first glance. having the stove setup which I have to
say was a good experience, slots together fairly easy and straight forward, we
went ahead to assembling the flue pipe, mind your hands as the ridges of the
titanium flue are still razor sharp and it builds a bit of tension as you roll
it to its intended shape, so a bit of care should be taken to avoid the flue
pipe springing back and cutting your hands. The sturdy metal rings go on to the
flue pipe and after a bit of spacing it is a fairly rigid pipe. keep in mind
that the material is very thin to safe weight and there for should be treated
with care as else you will and up with bumps in your flue pipe which are
esthetically more harmful then they functionally are but still. Most of the not
so severe bumps will come out however when rolled back into storage shape.
we slid the door on, which had two small metal wires coming out to serve as handles which to my experience worked exceedingly well as the wire automatically puts all your force in the direction necessary , no more pulling your stove across the room while your door is stuck due to distorting the thin titanium door.
after having lit a fire inside the stove and having added a bit of fuel my worries about the seals completely disappeared, the stove had massive amount of draw and was up to temperature in no time with a small tornado going on inside the stove. the amount of heat generate by the stove was more than sufficient even without a shelter I had great benefit of work alongside of it on the shave horse.
because of the immense draw however the stove needs refuelling quite often, if you start it up with small fuel and build a nice bed of embers and swap to big fuel, you can stretch this refuel to as long as 30 to 35 minutes but it is a stove that will require attention in refuelling. keeping in mind however that we did attach a 11 foot flue which is quite long for such a little stove resulting in a far above average draw.
The stove cools down verily quickly so can be packed away quite fast after being used. The bag that came with the stove is nothing special just a Cordura nylon style bag that fits loosely around the part, and however I like the part that you do not have to squeeze the part into the bag I would have liked to see a more sophisticated storage system.
The Final Verdict:
I would like to give it a 8 out of 10, as I see a few points of improvement, and would like to see a bit more luxury like the gloves that are added to the stoves of Kifaru to assemble the flue without cutting yourself, add also adding some contrasted labels to the metal rings of the flue as they are very easily lost. The spark arrestor did its job perfectly as I did not manage to see a single spark, and I would like to see a stop point for the little screw on feet, for the bottom, so you can’t accidentally screw them off and lose them. I do however see that it might be useful on uneven ground to screw the feet up allowing you to peg the stove into soft ground.
All and all a good stove.
