Makaira Metalworks Wildwood Stove
Manufacturer Comment
January 6, 2007

First I would like to personally thank backpackgeartesters for allowing the Wildwood to be tested. And a huge thanks to Becky, Coy, and Mike for their  hard work and straight forward reviews. All of the reviews have proven to be an invaluable resource to us.

To start with I might add that the Wildwood was our very first entry into the backpacking market, and came about by my own needs. It has exceeded my expectations to a large degree, in part to the efforts of all involved with this project. I had looked at other wood burning stoves and all the things that I found undesirable about them, I tried to avoid with the Wildwood. Some of them really make me scratch my head and wonder why anyone would use them. For example a wood stove that is completely dependant on a battery powered fan, if it fails the idea of cold noodles better grow on you fast. Or one that requires you to blow into a silly rubber hose that is directly connected to the hot metal. Don't get the hiccups or your going to acquire a bad case of heartburn in a hurry. And now I have a new and better understanding of what you as the end users scratched your head at with us. And we have listened to the testers and the emails from others with an open mind.

First, the issue of rust - I had originally thought that this would come up.and it did. And when most people think of rust they think of it eating away at the metal. This is true to a degree. Let me explain.most of us have seen a car that is rusted completely out in the quarter panels and wheel wells. This is the rust most people think of, and it's this type of rust
that is the worst because it has the added help of salt from winter driving speeding up its corrosive activity. The next type of rust is what you typically see on I-beams that are used in bridge construction. It actually protects the metal (I hear head scratching), once the initial layer of rust has set it acts as a protective barrier to the metal underneath. It ends up being just surface rust, and not allowing any further corrosion. Start looking around at some old structures and you will begin to see this in a lot of places. I had hoped that it would have been a small issue, but I can admit when I'm wrong. And I still guarantee the Wildwood, even if left outside year round will not rust away. The thickness of the metal is five times that of the rusty old cars you see driving around, and the Wildwood is not being exposed to road salt. With that said you will be happy to hear we are going to release a new stove made of stainless steel. This will address the superficial issue of rust.

Next let's move onto the all dreaded weight issue. At 17oz the Wildwood has raised a few eyebrows. You would not believe some of the emails I have received from what I will term as fanatical ultralight packers. You know who you are, you cut the handle off your tooth brush to save .001 of an oz. and then found that not to be enough and decided to you would just leave the tooth brush at home (now your teeth are green enough to produce oxygen like the rain forest). But none the less many have stated that you would like to see the weight go down. We hope that you will be happy with the new stainless steel model weighing in at 6.8oz. The strength of stainless steel has allowed us to go to a much thinner gauge of metal, drastically reducing the weight.

Finally we have had a number of people trying to use esbit fuel tabs with the Wildwood. The distance from the base to the bottom of the pan was not designed to accommodate the esbits. One can get creative and rig something up to make it work, but who really wants to do that. So we have integrated the use of esbit tabs into our new stove. The base of the stove can be moved into four different positions depending on what type of fuel you will be using (Wood, Alcohol - Trangia stove or similar pop can stoves, and Esbit or
similar solid fuel products).

We will continue to produce the Wildwood stove, as it has become a good seller for us and has generated a nice following. The new stove should be up on our website within the next couple of weeks. Some of its features incude:

Size - Four sided, 4.875"H x 4.25"W
Material - Stainless Steel
Weight - 6.8oz
Fuel types - Wood, Alcohol, Esbit



Jerry Marlin
Makaira Metalworks