I would like to seek the opinion of fellow forum users on the types of windproof / storm proof lighters out there before I plonk any moolah down for any of these. The ones I'm considering are:<br><br>1. Windmill lighter<br>2. Helios stormproof lighter<br>3. Solo Storm<br>4. Solo Match<br><br>Any comments / suggestions would be helpful. Thanks. (and, no, I don't smoke)

Windmill! expensive but worth it. The price of disposables makes a few scattered about along with matches and other firemaking options in your various units ( PSK, pocket, rucksack, vehicle) an excellent option.

I have been using a windmill for about the last four years as my primary igniter. It works well and it has won a place in my heart and in my "essentials" gearbag. I still back it up with disposables and with matches, kept carefully waterproof.

I tried an inexpensive, imitation Windmill-style wind-proof lighter that I got at Wal-Mart for about $7. I think it was called a sport-utility lighter. The functional parts looked identical to a Windmill as far as I could tell. Consider this a warning:<br><br>Hopefully the real ones are much better, but the one I had consumed a full charge of fuel very quickly and I also found that the button got too-hot-to-hold very quickly. Also, the cap hinged open only about 90 degrees, so it was in the way for fire starting and I also found the blow-torch style invisible jet "flame" was not that good for lighting things on fire. For instance, I couldn't easily light a candle with it. The jet would char and burn the wick, but the force of it would sort of blow-out the flame or something. <br><br>I was dismayed at how lousy it was. I would rather have one disposable lighter than 100 of those imitations in a survival situation. Again, the real ones are probably much better, but if even some of these disadvantages are present in the real ones, I'm not interested. <br><br>I decided not to experiment with a more expensive version and just stick with disposables. With a disposable I get 3000 lights in the most compact package for a buck or two. That's good enough for me. OK, so it's not windproof, but it is way ahead of a bow-drill.<br><br>Just some things to watch out for when you do your hands-on testing. Good luck.

Are you sure that these lighters are way ahead of a bow drill?<br><br>Lighters need maintenance (refuling) sparking devices.... Sure they are fast and convenient, and I use them, but I also use a bow drill. What knowing the drill does for me is give me total freedom to have fire anyplace and time I want. Many years ago I decided I wanted a freedom from material things which are common to man. I wanted to go naked into the woods, with nothing at all. I learned and tried and failed and relearned and tried untill I got it right. With nothing I can go into the woods any time I want and come back fed dresssed, and be well....... One ting though.... I was never able to keep the best fashions from Paris.... seems the furs i was getting were not of the same quality somehow...and the bark clothing while functional was funny indeed to see! Mac

I’ve been carrying a Windmill for some months, and I have to say that I’m not all that impressed. I had hoped for better.<br><br>Despite the lid gasket, the lid doesn’t seem to bear on it with enough force to really seal it. Mine has been dunked twice (don’t ask), and both times it was full of water. Still worked with a little drying, but when I took it apart it was very, very wet inside. There doesn’t seem to be any gasket where the fill valve exits the bottom of the case. The hinge is narrow, wobbly, and inspires zero confidence when the case is open- seems vulnerable. The lid does swing pretty much out of the way, but I did have a problem not melting the cap once when trying to use it in tight quarters.<br><br>Taking the mechanism apart is easy, but it results in lots of delicate, tiny pieces, and it’s not obvious how they go back together again- not something you want to do in the field. It seems pretty reliable on full throttle, but it does use a lot of fuel pretty quickly, and though there’s a window to see the fuel level, it doesn’t hold very much. I have heard that it can be hard to light at high altitudes. It does heat up quickly- you don’t want to be doing much soldering with it.<br><br>On the plus side, it’s been abused, but it’s still working reliably, and it’s very windproof. I just feel that there must be something better available for the price range. It does come with a nice PSK tin…<br><br>The Brunton monster seems to be a Windmill inside a huge armored case.. it’s just too big.<br>

One thing I did not mention is that I usually carry mine in a twist wrap plastic bag which keeps water away from it in any sort of normal dunking situation - anything short of taking the lighter scuba diving. While I like the windmill fine and I have lit fires at elevaions up to 12,000 feet just fine, I would never depend upon it totally.<br><br>When you look at cost effectiveness, there is a lot to be said for a bunch of disposables tucked away everywhere.<br><br>In my scuba days, I often thought about a scenario in which I would come up from a dive around the Channel Islands with no boat in sight and have to swim about a mile or so to get to the beach. What kind of PSK should one carry diving that would serve in that sort of situation? About the only thing that I could come up with that would work for fire was a magnesium rod, although I should have taken a page from Mac Muz's book and considered a bow drill. One could probably be improvised from material found on the typical beach..

I carry a windmill in my daypack. My psk contains a $7 mag flint among other fire starters and my keychain sports a 3" by 3/8" cut down magflint. For lighting a candle or campstove, a lighter is the superior method. For lighting a campfire, however, I'll choose magnesium, vaseline cotton and a good spark every time!

Sorry to dredge this up again, but I've been surfing on the web looking for windproof lighter options and found a few that were not mentioned here.

Primarily, I'm trying to find one that is actually waterproof. So has anyone tried these:

Colibri Survivor
(says it floats)

Colibri Quantum Submersible lighter

Solo Storm Weatherproof lighter

Colibri Tempest

Colibri Seal
(says water resistant to 3 ATM)

Colibri Adventurer
(looks same as Seal sans compas)

Thanks,

-john

As for me, I use the Brunton Helios, and am very pleased. Also, a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for in most cases. The hinged lid flips open about 160 degrees, and I haven't had any problems so far. The button doesn't get "too hot" and flame is easily adjustable with a protective cover over the flame adjust / fill port.

Solo Storm works good for me.
I had to remove the limiting tab on the flame
adjustment screw to allow enough adjustment
to get a decent flame out of it. Works great even
in heavy rain and wind and will burn wet wood.
I think I paid about $10 online for mine.

-indy

Buy a cheapie BIC. It’ll work a whole lot better.

I use the windmill and haven't found anything better yet...

Anodized Aluminum Windmil:

http://outdoorsuppliesuk.com/windmill/anodized.html

Could someone explain just what these lighters are doing differently from a normal (less windproof) lighter? They use ordinary butane, so the gas pressure has to be exactly the same. Do they just burn fuel faster and use a taller windscreen around the nozzle, or is there more to it than that? They look like really nice lighters but I don't see why Bic can't be making lighters with comparable performance (if less coolness) in the two or three dollar range.

They burn like a torch, unlike a normal bic.

Found some links:

Info on the windmill


Many new models (to me)

Regards
Thomas

It seems most of these guys are waterproofed by an O ring, but people report there isn't a lot of pressure on making the seal. I wonder if lubing the O ring with silicone grease might help?

Thoughts?

-john

One of my lighters is a ZIPPO "wannabe" by the name of Blue Shield with a made in Japan (which these days is worth more than a Made in China.) label on the bottom. My two ZIPPO lighters are collecters items with one having 50's slash coding on the bottom, and the other one having nothing on the bottom. They are both advertising Zippoes, and I think one of them has a "Case"? tractor on it. Haven't looked at them in a long time, so the memory is kind of rough.

With the waterproof matches, the cotton balls, the "Marble's" brass match safes, plastic matchsafes with whistle, and disposable lighters, redunduncy goes without saying.

The Blue Shield stinks from fuel evaporation, and if you have to have it lit for any long period of time, the whole case becomes too hot to hold, but it is capable of taking on a number of fuels that require nothing more than pouring them into the cotton batting. The wick is long and wire wound so that if you can grab it from the top, it slides to the height you want. The cotton waddings formed cotton cover can be lifted up and spare flints can be stored in it, and the whole shebang fits fairly flat no matter where you want to store it.

And so I keep it for a cost of; free + $1.50 for a new 4" wick I just purchased two days ago and Couglands 9 flints for $ .87 (They fit and are half the price of Zippo 5-pack flints.) as the primary use unit because of the fuel versatility.

Bountyhunter

Solo Storm - had it for a year. Went camping with it but didn't realize I was almost empty and the result was a very low flame. Mind you I was using cheap Ronson butane which caused inconsistent burning. After I refilled with better quality butane and fine tuned the burner for my elevation (1900') she works like a charm. (Hey, I didn't know you have to fine tune the light for elevations - part of the reason why I had a smaller flame at 6000'.

I've not had a problem at all with the seal in simple damp weather but I haven't encounted a true dunking of the lighter yet.

The hotter more intense flame is more useful than a Bic for melting or igniting items, IMHO.

I just bought a Ronson butane lighter, $5 at TSC (Tractor supply company)So far it is awesome! solid strong flame, and tough outter caseing. But i have only had it for 7 hours so far !

Also Roarmeister, how do like your Ronson lighter? Better than Solos? - My Solo must be a defect because it is totally nonfuctional and a piece of junk!! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

i came across your survival forum, specifically the thread on lighters/igniters. I hope I'm not violating your rules for 'bumping' old threads. but i wanted to let y'all know, i have sold/repaired every type of lighter from '30s zippos and ronsons to the colibri quantums. while the quantums(the flameless/windproof ones) get a bad rap, when properly tweaked, they will give YEARS of dependable, unbeatable service, even in 40+mph winds. The little coil/screen in the nozzle is actually platinum and acts as a catalyst in contact with the burning butane.(I won't pretend to fully understand it.) The result is once ignited, the platinum screen, with a very high melting point, will glow white-hot, and while a gust might actually blow out the flame, the screen is hot enough to immediately re-ignite the butane(or the reaction between the butane and the platinum does; not sure which) either way the end result is you cannot blow it out. They get a bad rap for two reasons: one is that if you use anything but filtered butane, the tiny,tiny aperture in the nozzle clogs. About half the time I've been able to clear the clog by removing the burner and blowing it out with compressed air. Not necessarily something I'd recommend anyone trying, unless they have a lot of confidence in their mechanical skills, and are very methodical about keeping track of where each part came from. Much better for them to avoid it altogether by using only filtered butane. Colibri or Vector butane are the best, and while pricier than zippo or ronson, a small price to keep a 60 dollar lighter out of the trash can. The second reason is that often, the first time you fill the lighter after buying it, it seems like the flame is always barely there, even with the lighter cranked up. It took me a lot of warranty returns to figure out that when the lighters are assembled, the final step is filling the lighter and setting the governor on the flame height adjuster, on the bottom of the lighter. Apparently at the factory they fill it off a huge cylinder of butane, at 30-60 p.s.i.(my best guess), then set the governor so that cranked up, the flame is a high as it needs to be without overheating the burner, which is fine until the first time you fill it off the store-bought butane cane, which is less than half the p.s.i of the tank it gets filled off at the factory. So, obviously, it never is able to develop the kind of pressure needed, set the way it is. This is easily remedied: with a phillips jeweler's screwdriver, remove the bottom of the lighter, taking care not to tear or lose the o-ring seal at the top of the case bottom. You'll see a black plastic ring around the adjuster on the bottom; carefully take that ring off,rotate approx 15 degrees clockwise, and replace. With the case bottom still off, ignite the lighter. Turned up all the way(counter-clockwise) the flame should almost blow itself out with a full tank. If not, repeat removing ring and rotating. Reassemble case, and I always grease that o-ring before replacing; it can't hurt. Ditto with the o-ring in the lid. If the lighter still gets water inside when immersed, tightening the lid hinge screw a little tiny, TINY bit should help. Properly adjusted, I have taken one of the original quantums to a depth of 40 feet with no flooding.

One other tip to improve their lifspan, or at least between factory service: when the flame height drops, obviously you can turn it up, and should turn it back down when filling; however, every up/down adjustment wears that valves o-ring just a little. If you're in the field, go ahead and adjust, but if you're near a can of butane, refill instead. Saves a little wear and tear, and it's always good to be topped off- you never know when you might not get a chance again for awhile.

I keep survival kits packed in my truck, at home, etc. I keep a quantum(plus backup matches and magnesium/flint bar) in each. Two of the quantums are 5+ years old and have been in kits for 3+ years; everytime I've checked them, they're still full and functioning great.

I suppose these tips would apply to other brands as well, but don't hold me to it.

Should anyone have questions, or have a lighter they need serviced, they're more than welcome to contact me, either at my store Pipes Plus in Austin Texas(512-479-7473) or by email at (remove spaces) kent @ pipes plus . com

Speaking as a gadget addict and not so closet pyromaniac, most so called wind resistant/waterproof lighters are nothing of the kind. They are also subject to the same temperature limitations of any gas powered lighter. They do, however have their advanages. If you need to apply a hot flame to tinder fast then they come into their own. I have one in my E.D.C. along with a bic lighter and a firestick. My one is top end quality and believe me it shows. Also, regarding the diver scenario, and bearing in mind that I am not a diver, I would put one, along with a firestick, knife, a butane lighter, puritabs, mirror, several wetfire cubes and a space blanket in a waterproof pouch obf about 1.5 litres capacity. Which I would stash somewhere about my person. A rolled up 1Liter flexibottle would also be helpfull as well.