Zippos?

Razor

Razor

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 8, 1999
Messages
3,965
Good, bad, worthless? I kinda like em. Are they alot better lighters for woods use?
 
They seem to perpetually be out of fuel for me, no matter how often I fill them up. Maybe if you use them daily they stay in working order more reliably. But for the woods, definitely bringing a firesteel, bic, and matches.
 
Fun to play with when your life isn't on the line. Otherwise, they are left home when I venture into the woods. For me, a .99 cent bic is king.
 
What Kev said...... zippos are high maintanance and will dry up in a week just sittin there... let alone using it. Bic it baby!!
 
If the Zippo leaks on your skin, you won't feel it until it's too late - then you will be very sorry.
 
Zippos are great. . .if you replace the guts with one of these:
campingsurvival_2030_56955248
 
Even those torch flame lighters are a PITA.... keep it simple... b-i-c......
 
I've been a pipe smoker for over 50 years, and from 1972 to just a few years ago, I was a Zippo man.

Things change.

It took a long time, but I finally got tired of the thing running out of fuel at odd moments when trying to light my pipe, start a fire, light a candle.

I got tired of putting a fresh filled lighter in my pocket and a while later feeling a burning on my leg, and having a splotchy chemical burn.

A few years ago our son John, was in San Jose Costa Rica for 6 months on buisness for his company. He arranged for us to come visit, and while there go on a rain forest trip. For 5 days we hiked and nature watched in the jungle, and What I saw influenced me in choice of gear. All the guides had a short 12 inch machete on their belt as their main all purpase cutting tool. Also on their belt was a leather or nylon pouch that had a sak and a Bic lighter. The sak was for odd jobs and every campfire was lit by a Bic. When my "trusty" Zippo ran dry, one of the guides dug into his pack and took out a Bic still in the plastic wrapper. He had a couple extra and he gave me one. I was converted. I bought a couple once back home and never looked back. I put one in my BOB behind the seat of my pickup.

About a year and a half later, I was out and about and my Bic ran dry. It had been in service about 5 months of use lighting my pipe. I got the one out of my BOB, and it lit right up after a year and a half of sitting n my truck. No problemo.

I'll never go back to using a heavy, unreliable, out of date design lighter again. Sure it lights in the wind, but so will a Bic if you shield it woth your hat. And if I stay with the light color ones I can see how much fuel is left.

If a Bic is good enough for duty in central American jungle, that's good enough for me.

Bic, for when you need fire.
 
I am in the minority here, but I carry a zippo every day. Have several nice butane lighters that stay home in the drawer. I find that my zippo is easier to keep filled than butane torch lighters.
 
I like the Zippos. A friend and I were talking about them some time back and he said to fill the lighter with Naptha. Works the same but doesn't evaporate as quickly..
Perrty hard to beat the basic Bic though.
 
I like peanut lighters and permanent matches. They can take multiple fuels, including fuels which work better in extreme cold weather, like a Zippo; but, like a Bic, they are not easily prone to leaking. And they're more waterproof than either.
 
Zippos are fantastic. I know they are a hassle for some people I know to maintain, but those are the same people I see that have bought in wholesale to modern disposable culture; all-in-one mini HI-FI and one shave disposable razors and all that jazz. Zippos do have some downsides, there's not much point in listing the trivial ones here, they are exaggerated large enough by the disgruntled. The reality is that with a bit of rudimentary maintenance the only real drawback is they don't respond well to complete immersion. Well if you don't have a back up plan for that it is every bit as much to your shame as letting it run out of fuel or flints. Conversely, their versatility as a crude multi-fuel lighter is obvious. And look to the real world for field trials. See who has an easier time performing the simple task of lighting a cigarette on the spray soaked boat deck disposable man or Zippo guy, and which on the end of a pier fishing while it is blowing a gale .etc. Compare and contrast with another real world example in a thread here recently in which a guy declares he's nipped out into his garden for a cigarette, dropped his POS disposable lighter in the snow, and had to recourse to lighting by somehow depressing the gas lever whilst striking at it with a flint and steel. The whole anti-Zippo rap would be better examined by seeing what actually works and has been working well outside for all sorts of unrelated groups for a very long time. I think there is a grave danger of annexing off the topic, ruminating, and building premature conclusions when a bored mind seeks comfort in clawing at the minutiae couched as survival. You know the thing; the why live in the world when you can live in your head thing that motivates people to fish out their collection of knives they know to be sharp, make some little list, and resharpen them again anyway just in case...chase themselves round in circles guilding the lilly 'till they disappear up their own orifices.

KISS – A properly maintained Zippo with a decent back up is a sound choice. Shame this seems another skill parents tend to no longer pass on to their children.
 
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That has to be one of the best rants ever.

Just out of curiosity, how long can your Zippos go before all the fuel evaporates? The ones I've had go from full to dry in about two weeks.
 
I kinda like Zippos, I actually have three. They have a similar kind of appeal to them as mechanical watches. But I rarely use one. I have a full bottle of lighter fluid just in case I feel nostalgic, but for every day carry, a disposable is the way to go for me. For outdoors use, I prefer matches (with adequate backup, of course).

Zippos do look cool on my bookself though :) And for other pros, having one around the house can be handy - an easy and reliable source of fire with almost any flammable liquid.
 
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