Cigarette lighters really can be dangerous – don’t try this at home!
It was actually my intent to use this lighter, in my garage, to burn the ends of some nylon string so as to keep them from unraveling. Although I successfully sealed the end of each string I couldn’t help notice that the lighter would not go out or turn off! A dangerous situation, in deed, so I thought I’d open the top part of it to see if there was a lose part or something.
Unfortunately the top of the lighter came off with almost no effort – small little pieces and parts falling to the floor. My guess is the the lighter had been previously damaged (maybe somebody stepped on it?) so it easily fell apart.
Anyway, there it sat, with out the top, starter “thumb wheel,” or ignition components – all while the compressed gas was clearly bubbling off. So, in the interests of “science,” I placed the device on the floor and lit the escaping gas (from an arm-stretched distance) with a match. It pretty much exploded into flame and then settled down to the steady burn you see here in this video.
Captivated, I ran into the house and grabbed my camera to video record the slowly melting, disintegrating cigarette lighter – rather interesting to see the whole thing disolve into puddle of plastic and evaporating cloud of toxic gases…
Here’s my personal web page about low impact techniques and avoiding campfires in the backcountry:
http://www.rogerwendell.com/softly.html
11-01-2009
Duration : 0:8:55
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