Hi!
First, a little background about me and this idea. I’ve always loved nature and enjoyed outdoor related sports and activities, among which are camping, hiking, mountaineering and bushcraft. I’m also an licensed survival instructor for last ten or so years. I always needed something reliable to start a fire in all weather conditions so like most I carried a Zippo and/or a BIC and/or a firesteel. All of them had flaws, Zippos need to be refilled all the time even with a rubber band “mod”, BIC’s are not great at cold weather and can’t be used as a candle and firesteels are hard to get a fire going when it’s humid or wet od cold. Then I discovered “peanut” type lighters and I loved the idea behind them but most of them are poor quality or really expensive (for a simple lighter). When I joined this forum I saw the BLF LT1 project and knew this is the place to be. I contacted Barry with my idea and he said it’s doable and sounds worth trying so here we are
Why a new product? Well, because there’s nothing like that on the market. Basically there are three similar products on the market - Numyth Tohil (out of production), Maratac Peanut XL (no wind guard, cheap burner insert, usually unavailable) and Exotac TitanLight (expensive with few gimmicky features). Also, they’re made in US so by the time you got them in rest of the world their price is sky high - I paid close to 70 euros for my Exotac, a bit less for my Numyth. So my idea was do design something from scratch with a simple industrial design, that is both affordable and reliable.
I’m not good with 3D modeling software so I don’t have a model yet but here are few design cues it should have:
- aluminium construction
- 18650 or 21700 battery size, big enough to be used with cold hands and holds lot of fuel
- simple industrial design, body knurling similar to SP40 headlamp, usual Sofirns colours with addition of orange
- o-ring sealed top and bottom cap
- top cap has a lanyard hole
- wind guard
- three peace construction (top cap, burner, bottom cap)
- construction of burner is form one peace of aluminium (not counting small parts) with Zippo style design for changing wick and flint from bottom. Exotac has gimmicky design for changing flint and rest have to be dissasembled to get there.
- uses standard Zippo sized wick and flint
What do you guys think? Would you buy it if priced corectly?
I know BLF is not a bushcraft community but I also know you guys love cool gear and I know there are few hunters and bushcrafters and preppers here.
Cheers,
Vedran R.