Author Topic: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?  (Read 810 times)

MechAg94

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #25 on: January 03, 2024, 09:39:07 PM »
I looked on Amazon and saw fuel+flint kits for sale for Zippo lighters.  I have no idea if they fit all models.
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230RN

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #26 on: January 04, 2024, 12:26:23 AM »
I don't understand.  Here, northwest of Denver proper, there are three tobacco shops I can think of offhand: 44th Avenue, Youngfield, and Colfax.  The latter one also sells edged weapons.  I think there's another one on Wadsworth and 39th.

The beauties of using actual lighter fluid containers instead of dumping it out of a can of paint thinner are (A) the safety against spillage (precision of application) and (B) you can safel carry one  in a backpack while camping to start a fires in a drenching rain. (My Scoutmaster taught us that.)

Seems to me we had a thread on this a year or so ago.... ?  May have been on a different board.  I remember discussing Zippos bearing logos of companies and military units and the like.

Terry, 230RN
« Last Edit: January 04, 2024, 09:09:56 AM by 230RN »

zxcvbob

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #27 on: January 04, 2024, 12:48:16 AM »
Walmart here sells the fuel (I don't remember whether it's Zippo brand or Ronson) in a yellow plastic bottle for about $2.50.  The flints are just hard to find for some reason.
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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #28 on: January 04, 2024, 09:21:17 AM »
I've got a Scripto Electra XL which is flintless.  Works like the spark generator on a BBQ lighter...

           

Trouble is, I can't see any way to refill it with butane/lpg.

i got it long before I quit smoking in 2017, stopped using it because of the refillability issue.  Seems to be a minor collector's item nowadays.  Mine still works.

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K Frame

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #29 on: January 04, 2024, 09:44:48 AM »
I don't think the Electras were refillable. They were a higher-end lighter, but still considered to be a disposable.

They were also very popular as cobranded lighters.
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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #30 on: January 05, 2024, 02:32:44 AM »
It's kinda strange for them to introduce a product with a more complicated spark mechanism than the flint method, and not include refillability.

I've had refillable flint lighters, a BB gun which used refillable lpg as a propellant, and a miniature torch which was also refillable.  I mean, it's not like the valving to make them refillable was a highly complicated system.  Was Scripto just being stupid?  Or were they counting on multiple sales because of its uniqueness when yours ran out of lpg ?

Yeah, piezoelectric ignition was cool at the time, which appealed to me, but I wasn't about to buy another one when mine ran out so I stopped using it.

Terry, 230RN

K Frame

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #31 on: January 05, 2024, 09:41:08 AM »
"It's kinda strange for them to introduce a product with a more complicated spark mechanism than the flint method, and not include refillability."

It might be more complicated, but overall I bet it was actually cheaper to manufacture. You didn't need the striker wheel, you didn't need the parts to hold the flints, etc. The entire mechanism is smaller and more compact and uses far less materials, especially expensive metal materials like the striker wheel assembly. That's apparently where virtually all of the cost is in a flint lighter.

So yeah, I can see them introducing a non-refillable pizo lighter, especially given that most of them, as I said, appear to have been produce as co-branded give aways.

Marlboro apparently give away several million of them as incentives and rewards. Other companies did the same.
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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #32 on: January 05, 2024, 12:43:20 PM »
Quote
K Frame Reply #31 on: Today at 07:41:08 AM »

"It's kinda strange for them to introduce a product with a more complicated spark mechanism than the flint method, and not include refillability."

It might be more complicated, but overall I bet it was actually cheaper to manufacture. You didn't need the striker wheel, you didn't need the parts to hold the flints, etc. The entire mechanism is smaller and more compact and uses far less materials, especially expensive metal materials like the striker wheel assembly. That's apparently where virtually all of the cost is in a flint lighter.

I disagree with that --sometimes I think you say things just because you like to argue.

:rofl:

But maybe it's a judgement call.  The only "special" parts in flint ignition is probably the striker wheel and the cerium flint itself, both of which had been around for a looooong time and were in steady mass production by somebody.

It's kind  of a coin-flipper, considering the times. My opinion is flint was at the time, simpler than piezo ignition.  But nowadays you can't swing a cat without hitting some kind of impact high-voltage device --like BBQ lighters.

Terry, 230RN

PS.  My spell checker is trying to correct piezo to "pie."  Had to add "piezo" and "piezoelectric" to my Dictionary.  It's nothing new, piezoelectric devices have been in  use for many many decades... the old record player transducers in the playing arms were piezo devices, and if you look at your wrist watch, the crystal oscillator time base is a piezoeletric device, usually 32768 kHz. Which can be broken down to 1 cycle per second (1 Hz) by dividing by 2 fifteen times, for timekeeping.

(Edited to correct cesium to cerium
« Last Edit: January 05, 2024, 01:50:05 PM by 230RN »

K Frame

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #33 on: January 05, 2024, 12:55:06 PM »
"I disagree with that --sometimes I think you say things just because you like to argue. "

Of course I like to argue. Why else would I be here?

But note that I said I BET that the overall cost of the mechanism (and of the lighter) was less. I have no firm numbers to back that up.

But, it begs the question, if the piezoelectric ignition system was no less expensive, no less complex, no less reliable, etc.... then why put it into production at all?

In fact, why make lighters at all when matches are supremely cheap and fully matured technology?


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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #34 on: January 05, 2024, 01:05:43 PM »
^
"But, it begs the question, if the piezoelectric ignition system was no less expensive, no less complex, no less reliable, etc.... then why put it into production at all?"

Because of the "latest and greatest 'zing'" factor.  Note the name, "Scripto Electra XL." Given the times, what could be zingier than that?  It was the "high tech" aspect of it which made me buy one.  (Could have been simply a test marketing effort, too, who knows... who guesses?)

Terry, 230RN

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #36 on: January 05, 2024, 01:21:52 PM »
^ :rofl:

She should be doing the blowing.

Who said that?

Not me.

« Last Edit: January 05, 2024, 01:54:24 PM by 230RN »

K Frame

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #37 on: January 05, 2024, 01:22:09 PM »
Oh my god, I remember that ad!


But, it certainly didn't tout the newest, latest, ignition system...

If anything, it was touting its ability to fend off date rape...
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WLJ

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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #38 on: January 05, 2024, 06:12:36 PM »
^ :rofl:

She should be doing the blowing.

Who said that?

Not me.

Nowadays he could be a she
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Re: What kind of stores sell cigarette lighter fluid?
« Reply #39 on: January 06, 2024, 04:07:49 AM »
K Frame: "But, it certainly didn't tout the newest, latest, ignition system..."

I think it certainly did, but there's no point in horse-beating any more.  You win.  <eyeroll>



:rofl: