I decided to look for a replacement for my old zippo lighter and having heard of the new (to me) armor range I thought I would check them out.
On first look I thought great I’ll have one of them but then I remembered about the zippo’s weakest link – the hinge.
After searching various reviews it came to ‘light’ that although the cases are are made of thicker sterner stuff, the hinges are not
Major fail there in my opinion.
I like petrol lighters, always have used them so my search continued until I found these on AE.
Zorro War Armor lighter.
I got the stonewashed brass version.
I just thought wow, that looks like real quality and just what I’m looking for regarding the enhanced hinge & body, not much chance of breaking that unless I mean to.
What also caught my attention was the case appears to be CNC machined from a solid block and has a raised lip on the body which fits nicely into the lid so no more misaligned top & bottom, a pet hate of mine with zippo lighters.
It has a groove in the lip to seat a rubber o-ring to seal and help stop evaporating fluid. (comes with spare o-rings)
These are the same price I would have to pay for a quality zippo here.
It is a fair chunck of brass, larger and a lot heavier at 150g versus the zippo’s 55g but very nice.
I put a little JB weld in the hinge cut out to stop the lid flipping too far open.
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Titanium Version.
I really like the design of these so I also bought a Titanium version with Ti fuel tank which I have been carrying with no real sign of any wear after prolonged use.
The fuel tank works great by not letting the fuel evaporate.
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Plasma-X
Couldn’t help buying one of these too, a Plasma-X lighter to play with, I really like this too.
I modified this to turn on when the lid is opened which is cool but I’ve zapped myself a couple of times when using it, gives a fair little belt – might be able to stun a spider or something with it