Lighters: Caution, Concern, Sharing Knowledge

If you use lighters often, I feel there is something everyone should know. I'm sure most of us are familiar with the safety regarding obvious materials like butane, metals and flint. I feel there is one other thing that we may have overlooked, or at least I have not found any awareness about this subject in particular online, and that would be plastic.

I have had many lighters over the years. It's become a small hobby, to just own a lighter and to play around with them. As a kid, I went from destroying them to fixing them. Once you take things apart and learn what makes them tick, they become more than just something to demolish. I'd become fascinated by them even more so as I got older. Frankly, I'm surprised I didn't become one of those kids who started smoking at age twelve from playing with lighters so much.

I've been more experienced with the subject of lighters than I have with vaporizing, but now combining the two I'm more interested in the things that we don't see. Questions come to mind like; Is it safe to inhale from said heated material? One of my first and early discoveries, was that ceramic is safe or at least safest along with glass. Plastic is probably more of an enemy than an ally in the vape world.

There is one obvious thing that I overlooked. This is a problem that can be seen with the naked eye, but still behind closed doors. Usually your nose will alarm you of something like this happening, but it's not something you can depend on. This is the first time this has happened to me. There is almost nothing more obvious than burning plastic.

This is a lighter I had JUST BOUGHT, without lighting it for the first time, and it's already severely singed.

This one got as far as the second refill. Notice it's starting to slowly melt.

A better designed lighter with no melting at all. Even the extra thin plastic from the molding poking out is not effected by the flame. Notice there is no "surrounding plastic shield" to help with air flow, which is usually the culprit.

My main purpose of this thread is to warn people, that you could very well in fact be inhaling something very toxic without even knowing it. You may think you are vaping safely, but in reality you could be combusting something far worse than any herb. The exception here is quality in the form of very well made pipe lighters or most, if not all, torch lighters. Torch lighters shoot straight out and stays linear, while soft flames can wiggle around out of their perimeter. This wiggling around, can contribute to over heating or even burning plastic. Despite soft flames main con, I still prefer that over a super charged temperature.

Lighters are actually very sensitive little gadgets. While fairly simple in design, you may or may not be surprised at how fickle these little guys are. Lighters have very small parts, which compliments them being so sensitive and more disposable in manner. If you have a steady hand, patients, and of course the desire to play around with such a small thing, lighters can last a long while without any problems. I read all the time online, of people saying how "This lighter won't light" or "It's junk, don't buy this lighter". This tells me that people just aren't aware of the tiny, insignificant world of lighters. If they don't know how lighters work, then surely lots of people don't know how dangerous they can be mostly regarding if what comes from that little lighter, will be inhaled into your lungs while coming in contact with other sensitive areas along the way.

The enemy here is plastic, which comes from cheaply made products. I have a medium size collection of lighters. All are plastic in some shape or form. Some have more plastic pieces than others. The less the plastic surrounding the flame, the better.

I had recently filled up some cheap lighters. I purged them multiple times and was ready to light. I'd switched brands of butane because one can ran out. I wasn't happy with this secondary brand, but it was all that I had at the time. I gave it a light on the lowest setting, and the flame shot straight up almost 4 inches high. Now before this different butane, the lowest setting made the flame come out just slightly. Even the highest setting was not giving me a 4 inch flame before. I took the safety shield off the lighter and proceeded to adjust the flame height to accommodate this new fuel. Before I put the shield back on, I noticed that some of the plastic casing was melted. There was a plastic piece that was both supporting the ignition wire and helping to give the right air/butane mixture. I had taken the piece out, but surely enough the flame had much less endurance and only the blue flame became visible - Definitely not a good transformation for vaping. It turns out, the gas release valve at the top was just too close to any kind of plastic. Even if the flame became normal after removing that piece, the flame would have still melted the firewall bracket and probably the plastic coating on the ignition wire. This was a failed lighter and was built to fail all along for such extreme purposes as compared to just lighting a candle or a cigarette.

Bic lighters are common, but disposable. I try and get refillable ones otherwise it's such a waste and an annoyance to keep getting them. They also are flint based which I will avoid. If you look inside of a bic, there are far less plastic involved. Actually, inside beyond the safety shield, it's all metal. Half of it being the fling wheel but still no plastic is a big plus. Metal may not be as pure as glass or ceramic involving heat, but it's surely better than plastic. Bics would be my choice of lighting a flame during a concert instead of a cheap plastic one. They seem to made for long term lighting as well as short term like lighting a few candles.

I'd suggest if you use cheap lighters often enough that you refill them, pay attention to how it's made and inspect it if you smell or taste anything strange. I'd also suggest to immediately stop using that lighter. Be safe.

I like this kind for my el-cheapo, don't care if I lose, VG friend:
Before you laugh, the douchey outer shell comes off, no adhesive and the lighter is black underneath
the store up the street never runs out because of how stupid they look
the metal flame guard is sturdy, and held on with 2 Philips screws
that makes it easy to adjust the flame higher so the lighter won't become useless as it gets lower on fuel (i likes a big flame)
refillable and no flint wheel of course.


haha, hatred for this lighter

The second one on from the left is $21.00 lighter however for loading carts it never fails!
Even the cheap ones work.
I keep a Bic handy in my car.
These I keep in my tool box!

I think theres a lesson to be learned here. Never spend less than a dollar on a lighter.and Stay away from the 59 cent lighters...
All I buy are bics..