Category: Lighters

I often get questions via email or the comments section of both YouTube videos and DependableFlame.com articles asking how to repair a particular petrol lighter that in many cases I have never owned or actually handled and occasionally have never even seen. There are precious few variables at play in our endeavors to elicit flame from these fabulous little machines and a firm grasp of the conditions required to produce fire in the first place will give vintage lighter mechanics a leg up on troubleshooting and repairing any petrol lighter you set your mind to.

The Variables Required

There is a chemical reaction that takes place when all the elements necessary for fire meet in sufficient(or just the right) amounts to ignite, feed and stoke said flame. The absence of any one of these elements is enough for your efforts to prove futile.

Let me start by saying I am not an engineer or scientist of any kind. I may confuse terms here and there or describe things otherwise Continue reading “Universal Principles To Help You Repair Any Vintage Petrol Lighter”

Today’s installment in our series of Vintage Lighter Reviews will focus on the most unique lighter I have ever owned, the Swiss made NIKA petrol lighter. There are multiple design elements including the flint tension set-up and seemingly misplaced file roller that may cause confusion but certainly make it stand out from the crowded field of petrol lighters in general and aluminum block lighters more specifically.

You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen Them All?

(Aesthetic Appeal)

Perhaps a little more “blocky” than most, the NIKA is somewhat thick from front to back providing a wide profile compared with most roller lighters. But the NIKA is not your run-of-the-mill roller lighter. It is a very interesting design with a hinged snuffer that provides stability of function and design which are typical lacking in the pantheon of vintage aluminum block petrol lighters.

The placement of the file roller will catch the eye of some lighter enthusiasts and may even lead you to believe the mechanism was meant to be manipulated in a certain manner by a left-handed operator. The direction the file wheel is rolled however, will quickly convince one otherwise of an other-handed disposition of operation. The appearance of the Continue reading “Vintage Lighter Reviews: NIKA Swiss Made Aluminum Block Petrol Lighter, A Design That Stands Alone”

A couple of recent reminders bring me back around to an inappropriate comment I witnessed a few yrs ago in a Facebook lighter group geared toward posters selling lighters to other members of the group. These groups can be a ton of fun but some folks seem to want to chime in on posts where they have no business even commenting.

What Is The Purpose And How Does It Work?

I am in multiple groups that use the Deal Or No Deal(DOND) format but only one of those groups is specifically designed to sell cigarette lighters. The rules for these groups seem to be pretty straight forward but folks run afoul of the rules pretty often anyway. The gist of it is a seller posts a lighter or lighters that they would like to sell and set the terms for shipping, whether they’ll separate or sell only as a lot, etc. and buyers make offers one by one that the seller can either accept and say, “Deal!” or decline and say, “No Deal.”

The format is a little more relaxed and casual than an Ebay listing and also affords the seller of skipping Ebay fees and possibly even allow the buyer to avoid PayPal fees by using the Friends And Family payment Continue reading “What Is The Proper Etiquette In Commenting On DOND Or Other Facebook Group Sales Posts?”

A new cigarette lighter collector and viewer on our YouTube channel, Travis Watson, asked in the comments of a recent video if I would do another “about brands or types of lighters that would be a good starting point for a beginning collector?” This article is my initial endeavor to answer the question and provide background information for the video to follow.

Prerequisites

Let’s start with our assumptions about the prospective pool of lighters from which we have to choose.

1. Petrol. Does it have a wick? We’re not going to waste our time with butane lighters. There are plenty of folks out there that repair some of them but we are discussing petrol lighters every beginning cigarette lighter collector should look for and I don’t repair butane lighters anyway. So, if it has valves instead of wick and wadding, avoid it.
2. Vintage. Petrol Lighters in general tend to be vintage since the advent of stable butane fueled lighters supplanted petrol fueled models for virtually every brand except Zippo. We won’t talk about newly produced Zippos in this article but there are obviously some very sought after and collectible models will being produced by the company.
3. Flint. There are some really nifty piezoelectric lighters that have been produced over the last several decades and it’s not the worst idea ever thought of as piezo ignitions are really pretty dependable and while I have heard of them being repaired, it isn’t as simple as dropping in a new flint. If I’m going to invest my time in overhauling an old lighter, it will be flint sparked.

Continue reading “Five Petrol Lighters Every Beginning Cigarette Lighter Collector Should Check Out”

Are you going to eat with that silver spoon or cut steak with your samurai sword as it lays on the fine china you’ve been accumulating all these yrs? It’s not likely but even so some pursuits are wholesome enough for purely ornamental reasons. Cigarette lighters are not useless but what if you put together the greatest collection of cigarette lighters in the world only to have it separated for a pittance simply because you family is in a hurry? Maybe there are ways the collection can be memorialized virtually while still providing the financial support for your family and return on investment you have always hoped.

These Are Practical, Real Life Tools

The appeal of being able to put it in my pocket, carry around and use it was the greatest motivation drawing me toward the cigarette lighter hobby. Jax Teller used his Zippo often, he didn’t just set it on a shelf with a bunch of others.

I am a big sports fan or at least I used to be. When I was a kid and young man I collected baseball cards and sports action figures. Thinking about this as I write rings 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was Continue reading “The Supremacy Of Lighter Collecting And An Opportunity To Memorialize Your Efforts”

A slow start gave way to a rush of activity and creativity mid-week as a couple of multi-lighter arrivals give us plenty to work on and ponder.

An Interesting Old, Beat Up Table Lighter

I don’t recall exactly how long I have had this old Japan made petrol table lighter that is missing most of its paint. While the mechanism has always seemed to work and function as it should, the spark provided just wasn’t quite enough to consistently light as it should.

The Dunhill blue flint solved the sparking problem as the lighter was immediately usable but that got me to thinking about ways that I could Continue reading “Vintage Lighter Diaries Vol. 9: New Arrivals, Pondering Some Shipping Questions And My Friend Donald’s Website”

After an absence of less than a month, we enthusiastically welcome our repair clinic Zippos back into the fold.

An Old Beater And A Loosey-Goosey Lossproof

The lossproof Zippo was one of those late night or early morning Ebay bids. Chump change for a beat up old lighter with a ton of character and oodles of potential. It still had most of the paint in its depiction of the USS Camden and its shield, along with some interesting engraving for good measure.

To have tried to carry it as intended would most definitely have resulted in more damage and perhaps even the loss(even partial) of this lossproof Continue reading “Sending Lighters To The Zippo Repair Clinic: A Mixed Bag(Or Padded Mailer) Review From A Happy Customer”