How a Zippo Armor lighter should have been made

You people….You damn people sent me down a damn rabbit hole and now….I have a Zorro 912 - Curved Lid - Polished Brass on its way to my mailbox! :smiley:
This thread…I swear it almost moved me, I am the proud owner of a very…VERY optimized edc, the thing has been going on for close to 10 years and I am truly running out of things to optimize!
The lighter (I am a smoker) I currectly use is a lovely polished brass armor Zippo whith a nice patina on it and a few dings and dents which I’ve come to love on a brass lighter, but it always felt like a very vanilla choice, it is a Zippo after all.
Anyways this got me going on a hunt for something different, I’ve checked expensive stuff like DuPonts but…MEH…I have a solid silver Dunhill from my Great-grandfather, which is far classier than anything new and if I want to go fancy, a Heriloom is always a solid choice.
I’ve checked cheaper stuff like Douglass lighters and whilst very interesting, they are a tad too much for my tastes as I’ve always been drawn towards more streamlined shapes rather than a Steampunky feel.

And then I see this…A gorgeous Zippo-like lighter, that weights 3 times as much, with a perfectly indexing lid, flush integral hinges and machined from a solid block of brass??

A clear case of “Shut up and take my money!” for me.
I wanted one exactly like CRX’s titanium one but in brass, somehow that curve line on the lid pleases me greatly, and a lot more than a flat one…God only knows why…
The closest one I could find with a curved lid has a hinge setup that’s a little different, CRX’s one is defined by the sellers as a 3-hinge design, I went for the 5-hinge one, I doubt it will make any difference in daily use and I am seriously considering straight up copying CRX and getting a Carson Wararmor in titanium as apparently they are still available from some AE sellers :slight_smile:

A bit long I know but this thread was truly a wonderful find for me, many thanks to everyone who posted, you made an obsessive madman happier…And now far more obessed :smiley:

s. I will give my 2cents review with pictures and wahtever else anyone might like to see, as soon as it arrives, ETA 27 November at the latest, hopefully it’ll get here sooner XD

Welcome Swosh! Yeah, CRX sold a lot of these. :slight_smile: I’m a smoker too and as you stated, these are heavy duty, (except maybe for the Ti models), and I use mine as a table lighter. I’m still looking for the replacement O-rings.

Hey there! If it can be of some help I’ve seen sellers on AE that actually sell a replacement o-rings package for the Zorros, otherwise have you considered simply waltzing into the closest watch repair shop in your area and asking for help?
I have been talking to a guy who says that the Zorros are “cheaply made chinese lighters” because he broke his doing, and I quote, “Extreme tricks”, now why would anyone try tricks on a lighter that clearly has stiff hinges it beats me…
I am curious which one did you get? I went for the 912 with a curved top lid, it weighs roughly 150g, there was the option for the 912S but that thing is even bigger and it weighs 210g, that one is too much lighter for me to carry but the less heavy one I think will be perfect for the 5th pocket in jeans :smiley:

Anyways I am extremely curious to get my hands on mine, I cannot wait!

Living fairly rural, there’s no watch repair shops around here. Looks like mine is the same one you ordered. The stainless 912. Like I said, it’s too heavy for me to carry around. I’ll look into those O-ring replacements on AE.

So far the replacement O-ring that came with the lighter that I replaced the original with which deteriorated into pieces is holding up pretty well.

I ordered the 912 curve lid but in brass not stainless, I love items with some “heft” to them.
I will end up buying the Douglass Field S at some point if only for the “Classy social dinner” feel that fits very well any formal look.
Btw here’s the link to the orings I’ve told you about :
https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32972673176.html sorry if the page is still in italian :smiley:

Btw it’s actually quite positive that the replacement one did not disintegrate, it could simply be a case of the one that did being “off-spec” for some reason.

I have one question for you, I’ve seen a few people call these lighters “cheap” and saying that Zippos are better made, I think this stems from the fact that people tried to use these lighters to do tricks with, to me this seems like an awful, awful idea.
The Zippos are perfect for tricks because of their innate loose tolerances that make them very fidgety and easy to fiddle with.
These Zorros on the other hand seem to have quite the stiff hinge, imho if you treat this like you would a Zippo and do tricks with it, you’ll probably break the hinge, mostly because I don’t think these kind of hinges would take well to a lateral force being applied to them, the best example I can think of that is when you open the Zippo by placing 2 fingers on the top, one on the bottom and giving it a squeeze and a twist (I hope it made some sense :smiley: ).

What’s your take on it as an owner? Happy? Any other gripes exploding o-rings aside? :slight_smile:

Mine has been rock solid so far. I’m happy since changing the O-ring.

Uuuuuuuh…
IT has arrived…What a “Chunky Boi”!
Wonderful experience with aliexpress so far, I got both the lighter and a tritium fob for my keychain, arrived within 2 weeks and in the span of 1day from each other so, overall quite nice experience with the shipping too.

As soon as I am done with the day job I will post my pictures and findings on this wonderfully heavy new toy :smiley:

I have a few more details regarding the lighter :

- I’ve discovered Zippo inserts don’t actually fit in my lighter, they are a little too skinny, they basically drop in and pop out really easily therefore I stayed with the one that came with the lighter, not a huge fan of the whole fully brass lighter experience, so I will buy a spare Zorro insert just to be sure it fits, overall nothing to complain about, I knew I’d have to change that from the get go and honestly I forgot to ask the seller if it was possible to have a steel insert right away :smiley:

- The brass insert is somewhat softish, if you are used at grabbing a Zippo insert from the windguard and just yanking if off, you must be a little more careful with this one as you can feel the windguard might get squashed or bent if you grab it too tightly, again nothing major and one cannot expect brass to behave the same way steel does.

- The outer finish, this surprised me a little bit, I am not a fan of the whole China Gold Bling style, I got the polished brass version with the curved lid, and it was just too much as far as shine and bling effect, I tried forcing a patina with vinegar and salt immersions for hours to no result.
I then decided to lightly buff off what I thought might be some sort of varnish on the outer layer and I’ve found out that the lighter is solid brass, which is then plated with some sort of silvery metal (I would imagine Chrome or Nickel) which is the treated to obtain the dreaded fake gold effect, probably by using some nitrate, blueing, or something like that but clearly not a varnish.
Needless to say I did not care for the gold finish, and neither for the chrome plating underneath it, after a couple of nights of elbow grease and sand paper my lighter is now naked brass, I am getting now some scary fine grain sandpaper (1000-1500-2000-2500-3000) and I will finish the surface to develop a nice patina over time :slight_smile:

One added bonus of my obsessiveness was that by sanding all the faces of the lighter I got rid of a slight misallignment between the lid and the body of the lighter, it was basically protruding by a hair on one side, and missing the same amount of thickness on the opposite one, after removing the finish and a couple extra passes to dial down the scratch situation I created, both faces are now dead even.
Overall I think the whole DIY experience has made me like the lighter more as I got to customize it to my liking.

You could probably wait for the finish to wear out by itself but it seems quite durable and well applied so that would probably take years, I am not willing to wait that much and without some serious constant manipulation it would probably wear off in pathces here and there leaving you with a dalmatian lighter effect which I’d rather avoid :smiley:

I’ll load some pics on imgur once I am fully done and upload all of them including intermediate steps showing the chrome being removed.
Lovely lovely item, very happy with my purchase and it cost pretty much the same as my Zippo Armor in polished brass but with a much higher build quality.
The only thing that makes it less than perfect is that mine has the 5-Hinge setup instead of the 3-Hinge one that CRX shows, I do not think the 3-Hinge is available for the curved lid ones, but that is truly a minor “inconvenience” I can easily live with :smiley:

Normally I would not spend $140 on a lighter case, or nowhere near that, but with these crazy coupons that Ali has been giving in October I actually bought two. And I must say that the quality is excellent and far exceeds any Zippos.

I’ve seen that the original Titanium Zippo is selling for $1000 which is just ridiculous considering you are getting only 17 grams of thin titanium grade 1 that is probably just welded titanium sheet, with a welded steel/brass flimsy hinge.

But from China you are getting almost 100 grams of Titanium grade 4 that is fully milled from a solid block, with a much stronger milled hinge, and for $140. If this was made in the US they would probably ask $10k and a kidney

I’ve bought like 40 jet flame lighters over the time, from AE & locally, some very expensive ($25)… and ALL of them stop working properly after a few months. I mean they don’t hold the flame anymore, and you have to adjust the gas rate to the max to get it to hold. I think the problem is that over time the little holes in the burner get clogged, or maybe something caused by the gas pressure.

The gas lighters with normal flame do not have this issue apparently, but I suggest you get them with metal gas containers. They are rare and more expensive, for example the Dupont fakes on AE are made like this. Or this one.

I like the most the ones that work with oil/kerosene. Thy are full metal and never fail. And on AE you can find some models with seals, that hold the fuel very well so it doesn’t evaporate. For example 1st model here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32961854198.html

I got a Zippo jet flame insert, the one with 2 burners just yesterday - about 30-35$, just to see if it fits that titanium case from AE and ofc it doesn’t :slight_smile:

It’s metal on the outside, but plastic inside. I am pretty sure it will have the same problems as every other jet lighter.
I like the jet flame the most because it’s hot and works well in windy environment, but there just isn’t any reliable jet lighter out there.

I’m not “a lighter guy”, but got a Zippo a few years ago just to learn tricks (I like fidgets and things), and used that ’til the hinge pretty much exploded and the lid went sailing across the room.

Just for lighting stuff, I got a few of those with X-type electric arcs. Hot do they fare, relative to jet-type and flame-type lighters in a practical sense?

(Those lids, with the switch, aren’t too amenable to doing tricks.)

Nope, that’s why I use an intermediate material like a piece of tissue.

Same with lighting a tiki torch a coupla summers ago. Really needed one of those longneck lighters like for fireplaces, but I just used a thin strip of paper rolled into a tube, lit one end with the lighter, then stuck it up the hole to light the wick.

I gather most people who have those arc-lighters just light cigarettes (or fuses) and not much else. Same like lights. A thrower is nigh useless for flood, and a good flooder has almost no reach.

So an arc-lighter is pretty much impossible to blow out, but can’t do something simple like lighting a pipe. Whereas a regular open-flame lighter can do that easily, but forget it in any wind.

Was just wondering if others have the same observations as I do.

I don’t think a jet lighter with metal/glass tank exists.
But if there is one, the best place to look for is AE- the store that sells Dupont replicas, don’t remember the name.
The replicas are actually very well made for $40, I took one apart and the internals match a real Dupont lighter, they didn’t just stick a plastic tank inside. And the machining is pretty good. But now I don’t know how to assemble it back, too many little parts and springs :frowning:

Those are plastic inside most likely.

This is one all metal:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32925786506.html
Ignore the cotton from the pics, it’s misleading. The lighter uses gas.

This is all metal too, but way heavier:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32275972924.html

Btw, just looked at the zippo gas insert box, and it says “manufactured in China” :slight_smile:
Same type of insert you can find on Aliexpress for $4. Aliexpress has much higher prices than chinese-targeted markets like Taobao, so that means that this insert probaby costs less than $0.5 to produce. But people will buy it for $30 thinking they`ll get some super quality product. Like I thought:)

Boy, talk about thread drift and this thread going into a completely different direction! :person_facepalming: No problem though as that’s how most threads go nowadays. :rage:

To get back to the original topic, Swosh, I ordered those O-rings you linked to and with shipping they were over $1.00 apiece! Not that big of a deal as I now have plenty of extras to play with and thanks my friend! If you would like an extra, I’ll send it to you.

By the way, I discovered some inventive rubber plugs that replaces that silly square cotton piece on the bottom of the lighter insert. They are a really nice upgrade and have a built in holder that holds an extra flint and a nice firm flap that you lift up to fill the lighter and it folds back nice and tight. I had to trim a tiny bit off the flashing on the bottom to have it fit in our Zorro lighters correctly but it was minor. It’s a great addition to our lighters!

Today I tested the zippo double jet gas insert at 6-8 degrees C and surprise - it fails, just like all the other jet lighters.
At 12 degrees is working again.

Best jet lighter I have so far is this one:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32808993205.html

It has 4 flames and it fails after a few months like the others, but if you give it more gas it does seem to work again. The others stop working properly even if you turn the gas to the max.

“It can keep humidity and raise eggplant.”

What???

Hah! The derailment is strong with this one :person_facepalming: :smiley:

Don’t worry about the O-rings, I have the spare ones that came with the Zorro itself and if mine start acting funky I’ll just get the ones I linked you, but thank you very much for the offer! :+1:

Regarding those rubber plugs, can you shoot me a link? The ones I know about are made of rigid plastic and not of rubber, and they always gave me the feeling of being a minor improvement overall given how much fumes any Zippo oozes out, now we have the added lip and the o-ring already making a big difference, it could be worth going full bore optimization mode and getting one of those aswell!

I’d love to know your personal experience after a little bit of usage, especially regarding fuel optimization, btw IF you got the ones I am thinking of, once you open the lighter give it a little blow to “shoo away” the vapor build up or otherwise it might take a few attempts to light, or light with a bit more “umpf” than what you want :smiley:

Let’s see if I can load up some images on the process my Zorro undewent :smiley:

!!
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