Here's my latest attempt at a better lid for my wonderful SnowPeak 600 mug.



The old foil lid is on the table for comparison, the new one on the mug. I cut it from a flexible plastic cutting board, slotted and super glued a kevlar webbing handle into place and used a bead of silicone glue to hold it down.



The trick was to liberally coat the mug's rim with liquid ski wax (the release compound), let it dry, then hold the plastic circle in place while I applied a nice fat bead of silicone glue around the lip. After the glue had cured, I stuck the bottom half of the mug in a pot of boiling water to melt the wax and the lid came right off.

The first time I did this, I tried to put a bead of glue down on the plastic then pressed the mug down onto the glue. This didn't work very well. The glue dried so fast it was already too firm to make a nice indentation around the lip and there's really no point in having glue anywhere but outside the rim either. Fortunately the glue scraped off easily with a hobby knife.

For the second try I put so much glue on that I had to cut it back with diagonal cutters, but the grip is marvelous (when cold).

So how well does the lid work? The plastic warps a little when heated by boiling water so the lid tends to stay cupped after it cools. It's still flexible enough and the silicone grippy enough that it's no big deal. Thing is, the silicone gets really flexible near boiling and the lid lifts up on one side, but it's not in any danger of actually falling off.

Definitely MYOG, but I'm happy with it compared to the flimsy foil lid I had before.

The glue I used is fancy hobby shop stuff called Zap-a-dap-a-goo. I know there are silicone formulations out there which aren't so heat sensitive, but I have no idea what or if I can buy them in glue form. Any ideas?

Finally, since this is BPL, what does it weigh? It's 6g (1/4oz), which suits me just fine:

Looks good! You know you can buy pre-made lids for the 600 and others now through Jason Klass.

Neat! Last I checked Jason's lids weren't for sale, and with no promises of volume. I see on http://snowpeak600lid.webs.com/apps/webstore/products/show/861515 that the lids are 0.5~0.6oz, about twice as heavy as mine (feeling pretty good about that).

Do you know if those lids are tight enough to stay on by themselves? My lid will hold stove things inside the mug without needing a separate stuff sack which I find very convenient.

I appreciate the completeness. Have you experimented with clear silicone caulk. It appears to be fairly heat insensitive. I have no idea what its adhesive qualities are though.

Minibull Designs makes a Snowpeak lid for those who don't want to make their own.

Matthew,
Just to clarify, the lids ARE still for sale--just not through me. I handed the site over to Don Kevilus at Four Dog stoves and he is still supplying them. So if anyone wants one, you can still get one from Don.

Jason,
I emailed Don today about one of the lids for the Snowpeak 600. I am sure he will reply in the next day or two. I was wondering if the cost will be similiar to yours?
Fred

Keith: Yes! That's exactly the sort of hint I'm looking for.

I cut another round bit of plastic and slathered on some Ace Hardware brand silicone caulk, but I'm afraid it didn't go so well. The caulk didn't stick to the titanium (good), but it didn't stick to the plastic either (not so good). It was also so flexible that I'm not sure it would solve the problem.

I thought I had some other tubes of silicone around, but alas it appears I got rid of them in the last move :( Ah well, maybe another time.