0:04

Welcome to text Stuff, a production of

0:06

I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey

0:12

there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm

0:14

your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive

0:16

producer with iHeart Radio and I love all things

0:19

tech. And today we're

0:21

going to talk about lighters.

0:23

And this is sort of a sequel to our

0:25

last episode, which was about matches.

0:29

Alimona is not in the studio

0:31

and I'm happy to report

0:34

that nothing in my line of vision

0:36

is currently on fire. So

0:38

we're going to pick up where we left

0:40

off in that last episode. And in

0:42

that episode, I described an invention

0:45

that used chemistry to create

0:48

a flame, to ignite a flame. Now,

0:51

this particular invention I talked about in the last

0:53

episode is a pretty dangerous contraption.

0:56

It used sulfuric acid, which by

0:58

itself is dangerous can

1:00

seriously injure and disfigure you.

1:03

But it was using sulfuric acid and

1:05

zinc in order to generate hydrogen

1:07

gas, and hydrogen gas is also

1:09

potentially really dangerous. Hydrogen

1:12

gas is lighter than air, but unlike

1:14

helium, hydrogen is

1:17

extremely flammable. It's the stuff

1:19

that contributed to the famous Hindenburg

1:21

disaster. But now we're going to switch

1:23

over to some other technologies

1:26

and developments that made the modern

1:28

lighter possible. Because, if you

1:30

remember in that last episode, though the

1:33

version I just mentioned was

1:35

not really practical, they sold a

1:37

few thousand of them, but it wasn't

1:39

something that could easily be used, and it certainly

1:42

wasn't something you could carry around in your pocket.

1:45

So our next advance in

1:47

the making of fire would

1:50

date back to the beginning of the twentieth

1:52

century, so the early nineteen hundreds. That's

1:54

when an Austrian scientist named

1:57

Baron carl Aur von Velba

2:00

was working with some mixtures

2:02

of rare earth elements to

2:05

see what you know, they would do,

2:08

so what scientists do sometimes just trying

2:10

stuff. Well, one of those elements

2:13

he was working with was a metal called

2:16

serrium c E R

2:18

I U M, and it's a relatively

2:21

soft metal. It's silvery

2:23

white in color, but it does tarnish

2:25

when it's exposed to air, so it doesn't stay silvery

2:28

white for very long. And it's soft

2:30

enough then you can actually cut this stuff

2:32

with a knife, so it's a pretty soft metal.

2:35

Velbot discovered that

2:38

creating an alloy, which is,

2:40

you know, a combination of different metals

2:43

and other components. But if you create an

2:46

alloy using iron and cyrium, it

2:48

was actually mostly iron about seventy iron

2:51

cirium that you would create a

2:53

substance that could ignite sparks

2:56

if it was struck or scratched by

2:58

a harder material. And

3:00

he called this stuff pharaoh cyrium,

3:03

and he classified it as a

3:05

mish battle, which is sort of a Germanic

3:08

word that essentially means mixed metal

3:10

or alloy. These days, pharao

3:12

cyrium and mish metal has a slightly

3:15

different spelling. Typically are

3:17

frequently used to describe the same thing.

3:20

Also, a lot of folks will refer to this stuff

3:22

as flint in modern

3:24

lighters, but that is misleading.

3:26

Flint is something very different, and

3:28

this merits a quick explanation so

3:31

that you guys can understand and appreciate

3:33

the difference between flint and pharaoh

3:35

cirium. Alright, so let's start off with

3:37

quartz. This stuff is

3:39

the most abundant mineral found

3:42

at Earth's surface, so

3:45

we humans have tons of experience

3:48

with quartz. If you take

3:50

one part silicon to two parts oxygen,

3:53

that's quartz. And it's a durable

3:55

mineral, and it has some really super

3:57

interesting properties. It's heat resistant,

4:00

so it's a good component to

4:02

use in materials where you want to

4:04

have something that can stand up to great

4:06

amounts of heat. It also has a

4:08

really interesting quirky

4:11

phenomena that's associated

4:13

with it and some other materials. If you

4:15

exert a mechanical stress

4:18

on quartz, in other words, if you hit

4:20

it, it then accumulates

4:22

an electrical charge, or if

4:25

you expose quarts to an electrical

4:28

charge, it will exert an internal

4:30

mechanical strain. It will vibrate.

4:33

So you can make quartz pulse at

4:35

a consistent frequency by

4:38

applying an electrical charge to it,

4:40

which is why quartz crystals are

4:42

used in analog watches and

4:44

clocks. The predictable,

4:46

repeatable vibration that frequency

4:49

is always going to be the same is

4:51

a great way to keep track of the passing

4:53

of time, and so you use

4:56

that as sort of the uh,

5:00

the foundation for

5:02

all the other time keeping elements. But

5:05

this is not an episode about clockwork.

5:08

So we'll get back to piece of electric

5:10

because it will play a part later on in

5:12

our episode, but let's leave that off

5:15

for now. Now. More than that, quartz

5:17

comes in many different varieties

5:20

and one of those varieties is

5:22

flint. Flint contains

5:24

a lot of impurities, so it doesn't look like

5:27

pure quartz at all. It doesn't look like

5:29

what we think of when we think of the

5:31

word quartz. Flint tends

5:33

to be dark gray in color, but

5:35

it can have other colors in it as well,

5:37

like brown or red, sometimes

5:39

even whi er yellow, and typically

5:42

is much closer to opaque than

5:45

what we think of when we think of quarts. We tend to

5:47

think of something that's at least translucent

5:50

with quartz, but flint tends to be almost

5:52

opaque. And like courts in general,

5:54

flint has no flat surfaces

5:57

of internal weakness, no Planer

5:59

weakness inside court flint

6:02

or cowards. That means that you

6:04

do not observe cleavage with

6:07

quartz or flint, which is, you know, actual

6:09

geological kind of term here.

6:12

So in other words, if you were

6:14

to strike this material hard enough

6:16

to break it, you would see what's called

6:18

a conchoidal fracture, that's

6:21

a smoothly curving fracture.

6:23

Surface Glass is a

6:26

type of material that has conchoidal

6:28

fractures as opposed to Planer

6:30

fractures or cleavage.

6:33

By breaking quartz or flint in

6:35

very precise ways. You can fashion

6:38

tough, sharp objects,

6:41

stuff that can stand up to somewear

6:43

and tear, and it can have a very sharp

6:46

edge to it, which is why flint was a

6:48

valuable material in early

6:50

human history. It could be chipped

6:53

to shape into stuff like arrowheads

6:55

spear points, as well as into

6:58

cutting tools like access is now

7:01

getting back to making fires.

7:03

The property we're interested in with flint

7:06

is that if you were to strike flint

7:08

against iron, you can

7:10

create sparks. But why is

7:12

that, Well, it's not because

7:14

of the flint necessarily, it's

7:17

actually more because of the irons. The iron

7:19

is pyrophoric, which

7:22

means it's a material that

7:24

will ignite under room

7:26

temperature. And that probably

7:29

sounds really weird, right.

7:31

I Mean, we've all come into

7:33

contact with iron, We've all seen iron

7:35

objects, and most of the time I

7:37

think we could agree that's not you

7:40

know, currently on fire. So

7:42

what actually gives here? What's

7:45

happening and why do I say that iron

7:47

is pyrophoric. We'll see when iron

7:50

encounters air, it begins

7:52

to oxidize, and with iron, that

7:54

means it develops a thin layer of

7:56

iron oxide on the outside surface

7:59

of the iron itself. Iron oxide is

8:01

known by another name rust. So

8:04

the rusting process is a chemical

8:06

reaction, and it's an exothermic

8:09

chemical reaction, if you remember from our last

8:11

episode. An exothermic reaction

8:13

is one that in the process

8:16

of this chemical reaction going on, releases

8:18

heat. But if you're talking about any

8:20

appreciable amount of iron, as

8:23

in more than just a tiny speck of the stuff,

8:25

that heat dissipates pretty quickly.

8:28

The relative mass of the

8:30

iron is great enough that

8:32

the heat becomes a non factor.

8:35

And this is really important. We have to consider

8:37

the ratio of a

8:40

any given amount of irons mass

8:43

relative to the surface area that

8:45

is exposed to the air. If

8:48

the iron has more than a little mass, that

8:50

heat can dissipate through the rest of the hunk of

8:52

iron. You know, all the iron atoms that are

8:54

not exposed to air will just sort

8:56

of absorb that heat and nothing else happens

8:59

apart from the external surfaces

9:01

rusting. And once they rust, they've

9:04

got this sort of protective layer, and

9:06

thus the rest of the iron atoms

9:08

aren't exposed to oxygen anymore. Rusting

9:11

really is just a similar process to burning.

9:14

That burning is also a chemical reaction. In

9:16

which material oxidizes. It is just

9:18

that burning happens a lot faster and

9:21

with you know, flames and stuff. When

9:24

you strike iron with a flint, the

9:26

flint is actually hard enough and

9:29

typically sharp enough to cause

9:31

very tiny shards of iron

9:33

to shear off of whatever it is

9:35

you're striking. While

9:38

any part of those tiny

9:41

pieces that were previously exposed to oxygen

9:43

still have an iron oxide coating, the

9:46

rest of those small pieces haven't

9:48

been touched by oxygen at all, So

9:51

these are pure iron with no iron oxide

9:53

arm and as soon as that surface

9:55

makes contact with oxygen, the oxidizing

9:58

process begins immediately.

10:01

So now we're talking about iron in which

10:03

the ratio of surface

10:05

area of exposed iron compared

10:08

to the mass of that iron has

10:10

been flipped. It's very little

10:12

mass, and much of it is exposed to oxygen.

10:15

The mass of the shards is

10:17

so low that it cannot dissipate that heat,

10:20

So the exposed surface

10:22

oxidizes at a rate faster

10:24

than heat can dissipate. So since the heat

10:26

can't dissipate, it builds

10:29

up. It builds up super super

10:31

fast, and those tiny shards of iron

10:33

get hot, hot enough to glow

10:36

and to reach the ignition temperature

10:38

of some other fuel source, like the tinder

10:41

of a camp fire. That all happens

10:43

in the blink of an eye, and that is a spark.

10:46

The spark you see are these tiny pieces of iron

10:49

that are oxidizing and they're generating

10:51

so much heat that they cannot dissipate that

10:54

the metal itself begins to glow

10:56

from that heat. So when

10:59

you strike iron against flint, you're creating

11:01

tiny flying shards of

11:04

white hot iron particles, and

11:07

that's why you're able to use those to

11:10

light a camp fire. For example. Flint

11:14

was also used in early firearms.

11:16

Flint would be in the striking arm

11:18

of a gun like a flint lock rifle

11:21

or a flint lock pistol, and

11:24

so you would have this little hammer

11:26

that would have flint attached

11:29

to it, and you would have a little cup,

11:32

essentially a little receptacle cup, and

11:35

the when you pull the trigger, the

11:37

hammer would come down and strike

11:39

inside the cup. It would hit another

11:42

surface that would be made out of pyrite,

11:44

which is a mix of iron and silicon. The

11:46

collision would create sparks, which ignites

11:49

a small amount of gunpowder. It leads into the

11:51

chamber of the firearm ignites

11:54

a larger amount of gunpowder, which causes

11:56

an explosion and then propels a projectile

11:58

out of the weapon. So that's where you get your

12:00

flintlock pistols and your flintlock rifles.

12:03

Now, technically you don't absolutely

12:06

have to use flint. If you

12:08

want to use iron to generate sparks.

12:10

You really just need something that's hard

12:12

enough and sharp enough to shear off

12:15

those tiny particles of iron. That's

12:17

the secret. It's not the flint, it's

12:19

really the iron. Flint happens

12:21

to have that kind of hardness

12:23

to it naturally, and there's a whole

12:25

lot of flint that's available readily

12:28

out in the world. It's close to the surface

12:30

of the planet, so it's easy to find,

12:32

so it's a very common pairing with iron

12:35

or steel. Also, remember

12:37

steel itself is an alloy

12:39

of iron and carbon and sometimes

12:41

some other stuff too, and carbon

12:44

steel is mostly iron like

12:47

iron, and tends to be

12:49

fairly brittle as far as steel goes,

12:52

so it's frequently used in flint and

12:54

steel kits. In fact, steel

12:56

is typically better than playin

12:59

old iron is because as iron has a tendency

13:01

to bend rather than break when

13:04

it's struck by a harder surface, So you want

13:06

something that's a little more brittle that will shear

13:08

off a bit. Because bending doesn't

13:11

produce sparks, It just you know, dentse it.

13:13

Adding carbon makes iron less bindy.

13:16

So in general, the harder the steel and the sharper

13:18

the flint, the better sparks you're gonna

13:20

get when you strike the two of them together. Also,

13:24

if you've ever seen anyone use a machine

13:26

like a grinder to shape

13:28

iron or steel, you've likely seen showers

13:31

of sparks that come down

13:33

as a result. Those sparks come from

13:35

the same process I just described. Tiny

13:37

fragments of pure iron are glowing

13:39

white hot as they oxidize upon

13:42

exposure to the air. All

13:44

right, but what about pharaoh cyrium. I

13:46

mentioned that earlier. Well for starters,

13:49

pharaoh Cyrium is not a mineral

13:51

like flint is. And to be fair, some people

13:53

don't refer to flint as a mineral, they just call it

13:55

a rock. But pharaoh cirium

13:57

isn't a mineral or a rock. It's

14:00

an alloy. It's made up of two metals,

14:03

and the combination of iron and syrium turned

14:05

out to be really useful. You've

14:07

got iron, which will oxidize rapidly

14:09

when exposed to air, and you've got cirium,

14:12

which has a low ignition temperature, so

14:14

that oxidizing process will ignite

14:16

the serrium and make the sparks more practical,

14:19

makes it more likely that you're able

14:21

to use them to do something like light of

14:23

fire. And after he first

14:25

developed pharaoh cirium, Welsbach

14:28

would tweak this alloy

14:30

to try and fine tune it to make

14:32

it more effective as sort of a spark

14:35

making fire starting material. He

14:37

discovered that adding another soft metal

14:40

called lanthanum in very small

14:42

amounts meant that Pharao cirium

14:44

would create brighter sparks and

14:47

thus be even more effective as a

14:49

way of starting fires. Now, in most

14:52

lighters, the quote unquote flint

14:54

in the lighter is actually a piece of pharaoh

14:57

cirium. It's not flint, it's

15:00

pharaoh cirium. And then most lighters use some

15:02

sort of wheel made out of a harder

15:04

material like steel that's

15:07

a striker. So turning the steel

15:09

wheel causes the wheel

15:11

to rub or strike against

15:13

the pharaoh cyrium quote unquote flint

15:16

quickly, and that throws off sparks.

15:18

There's usually some other piece

15:20

of the lighter that holds the pharaoh

15:23

cirium to a positive

15:25

pressure against the wheel so

15:27

that it remains in contact with the wheel

15:30

even as you start to wear down the pharaoh cirium.

15:32

So there's usually some sort of spring or

15:35

something that exerts pressure

15:37

on that pharaoh cirium to make sure it remains

15:39

in contact with the wheel, because if the pharaoh cirium

15:42

loses contact with the wheel, the wheel will just

15:44

spend freely. You won't get any sparks

15:46

at all because the material that gives

15:49

off the sparks isn't in contact with

15:51

the striking surface anymore. Bells

15:53

box discovery created an alternative

15:56

to relying on chemistry to generate

15:58

a flame. The arc would

16:00

do it if only you have a supply

16:03

of fuel. So one of the early

16:05

inventions to use pharaoh sirium as a

16:07

way to start fires was called the Pisto

16:09

lighter. I actually have an

16:11

outtake where I said pistoleter because it's

16:13

spelled like leader, but lighter. It's

16:16

a lighter. Uh is from a company

16:18

called Ronson, and it

16:20

was called the Pisto lighter because it had

16:22

sort of a pistol grip. In fact, it looked

16:25

kind of like a little handgun, a little pistol,

16:28

but instead of shooting bullets, this thing shoots

16:30

sparks. Ronson would

16:32

actually play an important part in the early history

16:34

of lighters, so it makes sense to talk about them

16:36

for just a minute. The company was founded

16:39

just before the turn of the twentieth century

16:41

by Louis Vincent Ironson or

16:44

Ronson, h Leopold

16:47

Hertzig and Max

16:49

Hecked, though at the time

16:52

the company they called they formed was called the Art

16:54

Metal Works, and the company

16:56

mainly made stuff out of iron, ranging

16:59

from lamps to decorative items.

17:01

But Aaronson was a bit of a chemist

17:03

and an engineer, and he kept liking to, you

17:06

know, to to to fiddle and and

17:08

mess with stuff and try and figure

17:10

out different ways of accomplishing things.

17:12

He worked on creating better matches before

17:14

he started making you know,

17:17

lighters, and UH we

17:19

talked about some of those attempts in

17:21

the last episode, not about his work in particular,

17:23

but the attempt to move away from things

17:25

like white phosphorus as your

17:28

active component in a match.

17:30

While n the company,

17:33

UH introduced the pistol lighter,

17:36

and inside this lighter was a

17:38

length of pharaoh syrium um

17:41

like a surface of pharao syrium inside

17:43

what would be the barrel of this pistol,

17:46

and then also inside of it was a spring

17:48

loaded file of harder material,

17:51

and so you could pull back on

17:53

this and it would have

17:56

the spring compress and a little

17:58

catch would be put in place to

18:00

hold the spring there, and the file

18:02

would be in its h back

18:04

position. You'd pull a trigger that

18:06

would release the spring, and

18:09

the spring would thus expand and would

18:11

push the file against the pharaoh serrium

18:14

inside the barrel of this pistol

18:16

lighter, and sparks would fly out the

18:18

end. As a result. The pistol

18:20

lighter didn't create a sustained flame

18:22

like a modern lighter. It was more of a spark

18:25

stick type of thing. So the idea

18:27

was you would aim this at, say

18:30

the tinder for a camp fire,

18:32

or maybe a motor engine. At

18:34

the time, there were cars that and

18:37

and motors that required you to have

18:39

uh an actual external ignition

18:42

source to to make them work. Scary

18:45

times, but if all went well, when

18:47

you pull the trigger, the sparks from the pistol

18:50

lighter would ignite whatever it was you were

18:52

aiming. At and you would have your

18:55

camp fire started, or your motor would begin

18:58

if it didn't work on the first past, and you could pull

19:00

the file back to the starting position,

19:03

compressing the spring, activating the catch,

19:05

and you'd be ready for a second go of it. To

19:08

create a sustained flame, a

19:10

lighter would need an additional component,

19:12

one of the three components that make

19:15

up the fire triangle, and

19:17

that would be fuel. I'll explain

19:19

more in just a moment, but first let's take

19:22

a quick break. All

19:30

right, we're back now. There are three main

19:33

components that I want

19:35

to focus on with the

19:38

early lighters that could create a sustained

19:40

flame. One is the

19:42

piece of faro syrium, which,

19:45

as I just mentioned, frequently gets referred

19:47

to as the flint, even though flint

19:49

and pharao sirium are very different things, and

19:52

technically it's again not flint.

19:54

In flint and steel that gives off the

19:56

sparks when you're striking them together,

19:59

it's really the steel, not the flint. If

20:01

you slam two pieces of flint together, you

20:03

can sometimes get sparks because sometimes you have

20:05

trace other elements in there that will

20:07

create them. But the second component

20:10

is the striker, which in many lighters

20:12

is a wheel that has a ribbed outer edge

20:15

and that is pressed against

20:17

the pharao serium, or rather I should say the

20:19

pharaoh cerium is pressed against the wheel.

20:22

And so typically you would put like

20:24

your thumb on the wheel, for example, and

20:26

and you would spin it the

20:29

wheel pretty quickly by bringing your

20:31

thumb down, and that would

20:33

end up striking against the pharao serrium

20:35

and then you get a spark. The

20:38

third component is a wick, as

20:41

in a wick like like what you would find in a candle,

20:43

and the purpose of the wick is to transfer

20:46

small amounts of some sort of fuel

20:48

such as uh nuff the from

20:51

a fuel container section of the lighter

20:53

to the area where the wheel and the pharaoh

20:55

cerium are generating sparks. And clearly

20:58

you want that to be a separate area from the main

21:00

source of fuel. Otherwise you're

21:02

being igniting all the fuel in one go,

21:05

and that would be wasteful and probably

21:07

pretty darned dangerous. So the wick is

21:09

sort of like a fuel highway.

21:12

It's very similar to the way wick works

21:14

with a candle. So let's talk about the

21:16

physics involved in that for

21:18

a second, because candles are something I

21:20

never really thought about in the sense

21:22

of how do those work? I

21:24

mean, why would you even

21:26

bother encasing a wick in

21:29

wax? Why not just burn the wick material?

21:31

What the heck is going on here? All right? So,

21:34

when you light a candle, you light

21:36

the end of the exposed wick, and

21:38

that part is easy to understand, right.

21:41

It starts to burn, So the wick itself

21:43

is starting to burn, and the heat from

21:45

that burning wick melts wax

21:48

at that end of the candle. At the top of the

21:50

candle, the wick starts to absorb

21:53

that liquid wax, so

21:55

it wicks away the wax into

21:58

the wick itself. The lick it wax.

22:01

If you were to try and light it on fire, it

22:03

would only burn if you were using really

22:06

high temperatures, far hotter than what

22:08

a burning wick would be able to create. The

22:11

liquid wax in the wick continues

22:13

to heat up and it starts to vaporize.

22:17

And while liquid wax only burns its

22:19

super high temperatures, wax vapor is

22:21

different. It's flammable at the right

22:23

temperature of of a candle. So the

22:25

vaporizing wax is what you're actually

22:28

seeing burn when a candle

22:30

is burning, and the vaporizing wax also has

22:32

the effect of cooling the wick

22:34

underneath. As it vaporizes,

22:37

it's carrying heat away, so the wick

22:39

doesn't just burn away. That's why

22:41

the wick can remain serviceable

22:44

even as the candle continues to burn. It doesn't

22:46

just burn up and become

22:48

useless. So the wick remains a conduit

22:51

for the liquid wax. So if you just set

22:53

fire to a wick, if it didn't have any

22:55

candle around it, it would just burn

22:57

up pretty quickly and then you'd be in the dark again.

23:00

But a candle isn't burning up the

23:02

wick as its primary fuel. It's

23:04

burning up the wax, right,

23:07

So a lighter wick serves

23:10

the same purpose as a candle wick,

23:12

which is again to convey fuel through

23:14

absorption or wicking from the

23:17

fuel container to the combustion area. The

23:19

fuel for early lighters was, as I

23:21

said, neftha or nf

23:23

thea uh. That's a term that originates

23:26

from the Middle East, particularly around

23:28

Azerbaijan and Iran, and

23:31

it was used to describe a particularly

23:33

volatile type of petroleum found

23:36

in those regions, But then

23:39

it would get applied to all sorts of different

23:41

stuff after that, Like it was described

23:44

as early as the first century by smarty

23:47

pants eggheads like Pliny the Elder, but

23:49

later folks would use that term

23:51

to refer to all sorts of different stuff, and it confused

23:54

the matter, like alchemists and scholars

23:56

in the Middle Ages would use it to describe pretty

23:58

much any liquid with a low boiling point.

24:01

For our purposes, we're talking about a hydrocarbon

24:04

fuel. In nineteen twelve,

24:07

the Ronson Company introduced the Wonder

24:09

light, and unlike the pistol light,

24:12

this lighter actually contained fuel

24:15

and used a wick so that the sparks

24:18

would ignite the fuel that was in

24:20

the wig and create a sort of permanent

24:23

match. That's what they called it. Now,

24:25

it was much easier to light stuff like lamps

24:27

and candles that way. You weren't just

24:29

shooting sparks. You had a sustained

24:32

flame and you could use that to light other

24:34

stuff. And there may well have been other

24:36

lighters in a similar vein of

24:39

this type uh that might have

24:41

even been invented before the wonder Light. But

24:43

as it turns out, this is one of those topics

24:45

where it's really hard to find a definitive

24:47

history on the subject, and it's also

24:49

difficult to trace back who created

24:51

the very first version of whatever

24:54

particular incarnation you're looking

24:56

at. But in ninety six

24:59

Ronson introduced a super cool lighter,

25:01

a pocket lighter called the Banjo.

25:04

This lighter had a button essentially

25:07

a lever. So imagine a

25:09

little lighter where you've got a lever and you push down

25:11

on the lever, and when you do that, it has sort

25:13

of a double action result. One

25:15

is that this pushing down would

25:17

also turn a striking wheel

25:20

that would rub up against some pharaoh cyrium and

25:22

thus create a spark. So pushing

25:24

down on the lever you get a spark

25:26

out of it. But the other effect was that

25:29

it lifted a cap off

25:31

of the wick for this lighter. So

25:34

when the lever is in the up position, you

25:36

know, unpressed, the cap is down. Pushing

25:38

down on the lever creates the spark and

25:42

reveals the wick, and the same go so

25:44

the spark can hit the wick that's got fuel

25:46

on it, and then the wick can

25:48

light. Letting go of the button, as

25:51

long as you hold the button, the light is the light

25:53

still remains, the flame is still lit.

25:55

But leting go to the button means the cap comes down

25:58

and it extinguishes the fire because

26:01

it cuts off the supply of oxygen, which

26:03

is again one of the three things we need

26:06

in order to sustain a fire. You

26:08

need the fuel, you need the heat, and you need an

26:10

oxidizer. So you remove the oxidizer,

26:12

the flame goes out. This made the Banjo

26:15

the first automatic pocket lighter

26:17

in the world. In the

26:19

company would release a tabletop

26:22

version of the banjo, so this was one

26:24

that you would not carry around with you

26:26

in your pocket. Uh. It would be

26:29

a piece on a desk or a table

26:32

that you would use to light various things, typically

26:34

cigarettes. I don't like talking about that

26:36

because I don't like cigarettes, but

26:39

that was the typical application of

26:41

the time. As for fuel, well,

26:44

I found a manual on how to care and

26:46

refuel a Banjo lighter, and

26:49

boy howdy did it raise my eyebrows

26:51

because according to the manual, you could

26:53

use quote high grade gasoline

26:56

benzene or energen as

26:59

fuel. Gasoline.

27:02

That lighter must have smelled terrible,

27:04

so to refuel. Uh. It had

27:06

two screw caps on this lighter, a

27:09

big one and a small one, so you would want

27:11

to unscrew the larger of the two screw

27:13

caps and that would open up

27:15

a access

27:17

to the fuel chamber, and presumably

27:20

you would then use a funnel and you

27:22

would very carefully refuel the lighter

27:24

or else risks spilling something like gasoline

27:27

all over it and turning it into a very dangerous

27:29

one use item. The other

27:32

screw cap, the smaller one, was

27:34

for the chamber that held the piece of

27:36

pharaoh syrium in place, so

27:38

that the strike wheel would maintain

27:41

contact with the pharaoh cyrium. And

27:43

so imagine that you've got this little piece of this material

27:46

that when it's struck, it gives us sparks, and

27:49

it's being held against this wheel

27:51

through the use of a spring that's

27:53

slightly compressed. Uh

27:57

So the screw cap opened up the chamber

27:59

where the spring was. So if

28:01

your Pharao syrium ran out, you know, you're spinning

28:04

the wheel and no sparks are coming out, probably means

28:06

that there's no more far as syrium, or that

28:08

it's been worn down so far that's

28:10

no longer making contact with the wheel. You

28:12

would unscrew the screw cap, you take

28:15

the spring out, you would take out whatever

28:17

little remnants of the Pharao serrium you had

28:19

in there. You put a new piece into

28:22

that chamber. The new piece of Pharao syrium.

28:24

You would put the spring back into

28:26

the chamber and you would have to compress

28:29

it down a little bit as you screwed the screw

28:31

cap back in place, and it would again

28:33

hold the new piece of Farris serrium against

28:36

that striking wheel, so that you

28:38

would have the sparking material right

28:41

there ready to go for the next time you need

28:43

to use the lighter. So you can actually

28:45

use these things indefinitely

28:47

as long as the other components

28:50

held out. The banjo

28:52

sold for five dollars according

28:54

to most sources I came across.

28:56

Now, you know me, I had to find out

28:59

how much would be if we were

29:01

to purchase it today, right, because

29:03

this was five dollars back in nineteen

29:05

twenty six. So according

29:08

to inflation calculators,

29:10

five dollars back in nineteen twenty six

29:12

would be about the same amount as seventy

29:14

two dollars today if

29:17

we we factor in inflation, So this would be a

29:19

lighter that would cost seventy two

29:21

bucks. That's a pretty expensive lighter.

29:24

But I guess if you're thinking that this could potentially

29:26

replace the need for matches for

29:28

like ever, maybe that

29:31

could be a deal. If you're going through matches like

29:33

crazy. These days, the original

29:35

Ronson banjo lighters, if

29:37

you can find them in good condition, can

29:40

sell for a couple of hundred to several hundred

29:42

dollars. They are sought after by

29:44

collectors uh. Since nineteen

29:47

twenty eight or so, the only

29:49

Ronson banjo lighters that have been made have

29:51

been replicas out of Japan, so

29:54

those obviously are not as valuable. It's

29:56

only the ones between nineteen six and

29:58

nineteen twenty eight that were originally

30:01

made by Ronson that will fetch those higher

30:03

prices. Lighters like

30:05

the banjo have lids so

30:07

that the fuel doesn't just gradually evaporate

30:10

away. If you kept

30:12

that wick exposed to air, then

30:14

fuel would start to evaporate over

30:16

time, and you would continue to see it wick

30:19

away from the fuel chamber and

30:21

then and evaporate into the atmosphere.

30:23

So you would end up running

30:25

out a fuel much faster, So you want to have some

30:27

sort of cap that keeps that from

30:30

happening. Another brand would

30:32

make this style of lighter incredibly famous,

30:34

particularly in America. That

30:37

brand was Zippo,

30:40

and Zippo's founder was a guy named

30:42

George G. Blaisdell, and

30:45

the story goes that in the early nineteen

30:47

thirties, Blaisdell saw a

30:50

guy at the Bradford Country

30:52

Club where Blaisdell was hanging out uh

30:54

in Pennsylvania struggled to light a cigarette

30:57

from an Austrian built lighter.

31:00

But the lighter was kind of unwieldy

31:02

and it looked like it required two hands

31:04

to operate. It was made out of very thin

31:06

metal, so that thin metal

31:09

was actually soft enough where if

31:11

you were gripping it too tightly, you could dent

31:14

the lighter just through trying to use it.

31:16

So Blaisdel saw the opportunity to improve

31:18

upon that design and create a pocket

31:20

lighter for the United States because he

31:23

also saw that people really like

31:25

cigarettes and they

31:27

were going through matches like crazy,

31:29

So if you could market something like

31:31

that, you could really make some money.

31:34

So Blaisdell then goes and purchases

31:36

the United States production and distribution

31:39

rights for that Austrian lighter manufacturer,

31:42

so now Blasdel has the

31:44

rights to make and sell those

31:47

style lighters in the US. However,

31:50

it didn't go over so well. He gave them

31:52

a chrome plating to kind of make them

31:54

more attractive and a little more durable. And

31:56

he tried to sell them, but the lighters just

31:58

didn't work very well, so he ultimately

32:01

decided to scrap that approach entirely

32:03

and to make his own lighters. So he rented

32:06

out a small work space and he hired

32:08

three people and they collectively

32:10

tried to build a prototype for a new type of

32:12

lighter. Blaizel sunk nearly three

32:15

bucks Princely some in nineteen

32:17

two to purchase used equipment

32:20

machining equipment in order to design

32:22

and build this lighter. Together,

32:24

they built a lighter that had a hinged

32:27

top. If you open the top,

32:29

it would expose the striking wheel and

32:31

the wick to the to the air uh

32:34

and the wick itself was housed inside

32:36

a chimney like chamber to protect

32:38

it from the wind, so you could

32:41

use the lighter even if you were out in on a

32:43

windy day. You can also open the

32:45

lighter with one hand. You could flick it open.

32:48

All it took was the spin of the wheel

32:50

to strike against the ferres sinium

32:52

flint to cause a spark

32:55

that would ignite the fuel on the wick in the

32:57

chimney, and you get a nice bright flame.

33:00

So if you practiced, you can flip open

33:02

the lighter with one hand. You can roll the wheel

33:04

with your thumb, or if you're trying to be you know, like serious

33:07

cool person, you flipped

33:09

open and then you strike that wheel

33:12

against your hip or your thigh or something,

33:14

and you light it and then you do your cool

33:16

you know, I meant to do that

33:19

kind of face. I can't.

33:21

I can't do that face because I

33:23

if I meant to do it, it didn't happen, And

33:26

if it happened, I'm just as surprised

33:28

as you are. Anyway, the flame

33:30

would stay active with the Zippo lighters

33:33

until either all the fuel was gone

33:35

or you flipped close the lid in order

33:38

to cut off oxygen to the flame, so you

33:40

didn't have to do anything to keep it lit.

33:42

You know, you you roll the striking

33:44

wheel as soon as those sparks ignite

33:47

the fuel on the wick, it

33:49

was gonna stay lit until you

33:51

either closed it or you

33:55

ran out of fuel or something else happened, like maybe

33:57

I don't know, you dunked it in water or something.

34:00

Blaze don't liked the sound of the word

34:02

zipper. He felt that just had a really

34:04

good zing to it, so he decided

34:06

to take a kind of a variant

34:09

on that. Then he named the lighter the Zippo.

34:12

The original price for a windproof

34:15

zippo was a dollar n two,

34:19

which means that today it would cost you

34:21

about thirty six dollars. Now,

34:23

if you wanted to go out and buy a brand new zippo

34:25

today, prices start somewhere

34:28

around twenty bucks and they go

34:30

up from there, reaching more than a hundred dollars.

34:32

For certain limited edition zippos,

34:35

they're known not only for their iconic

34:37

hinged top and the fact that

34:39

they'll stay lit once you light them,

34:41

but also for the types of artwork that

34:44

are featured on them. I think my own personal

34:46

favorite is one that is the brass

34:48

Necronomicon lighter. But then

34:50

I'm also the guy who wrote how Cathulu

34:53

works as well as how the Necronomicon

34:55

works for how stuff works dot Com. By the

34:57

way, I don't own a zip

35:00

bow, but if I did, that's probably the

35:02

one I would go for. Now. If you were to open

35:04

up a modern Zippo lighter with

35:07

the traditional fuel, so for example, let's

35:09

say that you need to replace the wick

35:11

or you need to refuel the zippo, here's

35:13

how that that would go you would

35:16

open up the case, and the Zippo case

35:18

is just that, it's a case. It's

35:20

it's not the lighter itself. The

35:22

lighter is inside the case, and you

35:24

can actually pull the lighter out lifting

35:26

it out of the case. You turn

35:28

the lighter upside down and on the underside you're

35:31

gonna see a felt pad

35:33

being held in place by a

35:36

screw that's actually

35:38

in an inside of a tube. That tube

35:40

holds the pharaoh cirium

35:43

uh or or flint screw.

35:46

It's a piece that has the pharaoh

35:49

cyrium at the very end of it. UH.

35:51

If you're just refueling, you don't even need to touch

35:54

that screw cap. You just move

35:56

the felt pad out of the way like

35:59

you bend it out the way, and

36:01

then you would see some packing material

36:03

inside the lighter.

36:06

It kind of looks like cotton wadding,

36:08

but it's this very

36:10

specific type of packing material. So

36:13

you would then take some lighter fluid Zippo

36:15

as its own specific brand it would prefer

36:17

you to use, and you would

36:19

saturate that packing material.

36:22

You would squirt the lighter fluid into

36:24

the packing material itself. Once

36:26

it was saturated, you would move the

36:28

felt pad back into place to cover it up,

36:31

and you would probably want to give

36:33

the lighter a pass or two with a clean cloth

36:36

to remove any excess fuel that

36:38

might have spilled on the outside of it. Then you would replace

36:40

the lighter inside the case. You want to also

36:42

give the case a pass or two with a clean

36:44

cloth, then wait a little bit to

36:47

allow the lighter fluid to heat up to

36:49

room temperature, and then you could use the lighter

36:51

again and it would be totally refueled. While

36:54

the purpose of a wick is to hold fuel

36:56

and the wick itself isn't really meant to burn

36:58

up, over time, carbon deposits

37:01

on the wick will make the wick less effective.

37:03

It won't absorb fuel, and

37:05

then you'll get sparks when you're trying to use

37:08

your lighter, but it won't actually light. So

37:10

if you're using a Zippo like lighter, what you would

37:13

do is you use some tweezers or

37:15

a pair of needle nose players to grab hold

37:17

of the end of the wick, and you would pull

37:19

it out a little bit so that you get

37:21

a clean section of wick inside

37:24

the chimney of that lighter. Wicks

37:27

are several inches long, so you can do this a

37:29

couple of times with each wick. And

37:31

when you do that, you would then snip

37:33

off the end of the burnt wick,

37:35

the carbon infused wick UH

37:38

to remove that part so that you get a nice clean

37:40

section inside the chimney,

37:43

and then you're good to go for a good

37:45

while longer. Now, if you've done

37:47

that a couple of times, there might not be

37:49

enough wick left inside the lighter

37:52

to do it again, and you need to replace

37:54

the wick. The replacement process is

37:56

similar to what you would do if you

37:58

were refueling, but as some extra

38:00

steps. So you take the lighter out

38:02

of the case, and rather than just moving

38:05

the felt pad on the bottom aside,

38:07

you would actually remove that screw

38:09

at the end. It's called the flint screw again

38:12

sparrow cerium, not flint, but whatever. You

38:15

take out the felt pad because now it's no

38:17

longer held there by the screw. UH.

38:19

You would also take out the packing material,

38:22

and the packing material typically comes out in

38:24

three or four wads of the stuff.

38:27

UH. You would need to feed

38:29

a new wick into the lighter. You could either

38:31

do it from inside through the fuel chamber,

38:34

or you could put it down through

38:37

the chimney and you

38:39

get that so enough of it's poking

38:41

out the top so that you've got the

38:44

the clean wick at the top of the chimney,

38:46

and then you would need to replace the packing material.

38:48

You'd kind of have to do it in

38:51

a way so that the packing material is all

38:53

around the wick, so it has

38:55

good exposure to that packing material,

38:58

because remember it's the packing material the whole the

39:00

fuel. The fuel then wicks into

39:02

the wick, so you want to make sure it has really

39:04

good um exposure to all

39:06

of that. So you're packing the material

39:08

all around the wick until it's all replaced.

39:11

Then you would put the felt pad back

39:13

in place, and you would re insert

39:16

the flint screw, and

39:18

then you could put it back inside the case and

39:21

it would be good to go. Now, the reason I went

39:23

through all that process wasn't

39:25

to talk about Zippo the brand

39:28

or anything. I'm not here to sell Zippo lighters,

39:30

but rather to explain how lighters

39:33

like the Zippo differ from

39:35

other types of lighters, specifically

39:37

those that use buttane, because

39:40

not all lighters are created equal, and betane

39:42

lighters work on slightly different

39:44

principles from these

39:47

style lighters, the wick based lighters.

39:49

I'll explain more in just a moment. But

39:51

first let's take another quick break. Before

40:01

the break, I mentioned butane lighters,

40:03

and they use butane as the fuel,

40:06

and the basic type still uses a piece

40:08

of ferrocerium to generate sparks

40:11

to ignite that fuel. So in

40:13

some ways they're very similar to the other types

40:15

of lighters I just mentioned, but there are

40:17

some key differences between butane

40:19

lighters and the NUFA or

40:22

lighter fluid based ones I had just been

40:24

talking about. At room temperature

40:26

and under normal atmospheric pressure,

40:28

butane is a gas. It's

40:31

naturally colorless and odorless.

40:33

It's a hydrocarbon that's found in natural

40:36

gas. It's also a byproduct during the process

40:38

of refining petroleum to produce gasoline,

40:41

and it is ignitable. But

40:44

if you were to compress butane just a

40:46

little bit, it liquefies.

40:48

And it doesn't take too much pressure to convert

40:51

mutane from a gas to liquid at room

40:53

temperature about three and a half atmospheres

40:55

of pressure. So if you sell bututane

40:58

in a container that can

41:00

hold that pressure, you apply

41:03

that much pressure to it, at least the

41:05

gas condenses into a liquid. Now

41:08

I wish I could tell you when someone

41:10

thought to use butane as a fuel for

41:12

lighters. But honestly, there doesn't seem

41:14

to be any record of when someone

41:16

thought of that idea first. There are a

41:19

lot of very general,

41:21

vague descriptions. Some sources

41:23

go really vague. They say something like sometime

41:26

in the nineteen fifties people started

41:28

using butchane for lighters. Others say it

41:30

dates back a little earlier than that, with the invention

41:33

of the butuane lighter coming somewhere in the nineteen

41:35

thirties or nineteen forties, whenever

41:37

they were first manufactured, and whomever

41:40

it was that figured it out. They

41:42

work on a pretty ingenious principle.

41:44

So inside a butane lighter, the fuel

41:47

chamber is sealed, so it acts as

41:49

a low pressure container that

41:51

keeps mutane in liquid form because

41:53

it's under that three and a half atmospheres

41:55

of pressure. A tube from

41:58

the fuel chamber to the chim me, you

42:00

know, the part where the flame comes

42:02

up, acts as a conduit

42:04

for this fuel. And the tube

42:07

has a valve and a nozzle, so

42:09

there's a valve and then right after the valves nozzle,

42:12

so when the lighter is not used, the valve is shut.

42:14

So the bututane remains in liquid form, there's nowhere

42:16

for it to go. On a classic

42:18

butane lighter, you've got the striking

42:20

wheel, just like in the other lighters I've described,

42:23

and rather than a wick, you have the end

42:25

of a nozzle. And then there's this

42:28

little button that you're supposed to hold

42:30

down like you spin the wheel, and when

42:32

your thumb comes down at the end of the spin, it

42:34

presses this button and you're supposed to hold it

42:37

down. That button is the release

42:39

for the valve that closes off

42:41

the tube from the fuel chamber. When

42:44

that valve opens, there's a

42:46

lower pressure pathway for the but

42:48

tane to move through, and we know that

42:50

fluids will move from an area of high

42:53

pressure to an area of low pressure.

42:55

So when this valve opens, the but tane

42:58

moves up the tube and it hits the nozzle.

43:01

The mutane then boils off into

43:03

butane gas. The spark

43:05

from the striking wheel uh

43:07

and the flint or pharaoh's cirium

43:10

ignites this escaping butane

43:12

gas. So as long as you hold down

43:14

the button, you keep the valve open,

43:16

and the buttane gas continues to come out

43:19

and feeds the flame. It provides

43:21

the fuel, so the fuel is constantly

43:23

being replenished as long as you hold down the

43:25

button. When you let go of the button, it closes

43:28

the valve, thus cutting off the fuel

43:31

to the flame, and the flame goes out. Buttane

43:34

lighters don't require a wick, so

43:36

there's no need to replace wicks over

43:38

time. There's no wick to replace. Many

43:41

buttane lighters have a means

43:43

of adjusting how wide that valve

43:46

will open when you press down on a button. That

43:48

affects how much butane gas can

43:51

escape at any given amount of time, so

43:54

it affects how big the flame will be. More

43:56

fuel means bigger flame. Less fuel

43:59

means smaller flame, so if you restrict the valve

44:01

you get a very low flame. You open the valve

44:03

as much as you can, the flame would be much larger.

44:07

Another advantage was that butane

44:09

didn't give off an unpleasant odor the

44:11

way earlier fuels were.

44:13

They were smelly, but butuane

44:16

didn't smell. It burned without

44:18

making any sort of smell at all. Really, one

44:21

disadvantage is that it's trickier

44:23

to refuel a bututane lighter.

44:26

Some beautane lighters are marketed as

44:28

disposable, which really just means there's

44:30

no way to refuel them at all once

44:33

they're out, so you're meant to throw them

44:35

away and buy a new one. And

44:37

when I say there's no way, people have figured

44:40

out ways. But typically you're meant

44:42

to just use it and then toss it,

44:44

which is pretty wasteful. Perhaps the best

44:46

known of these is the Big Lighter,

44:49

which was first produced in the early nineteen

44:51

seventies. The bit lighter was seen as an

44:53

inexpensive alternative to the more fashionable

44:56

lighters like Zippo. Other

44:58

bututane lighters are meant to be reusable,

45:00

and they include a second valve. This

45:03

is typically on the base of the lighter, the underside

45:06

of the lighter, and this valve allows

45:08

buttane gas to get injected into

45:10

the fuel chamber, but prevents it

45:12

from coming back out. Now, typically

45:15

if you were refueling a butane lighter,

45:17

you would hold the lighter upside down. You'd

45:20

use something pointy to kind of open up the

45:22

valve and bleed it of any old

45:24

butane gas, and then you would get

45:26

a butane refill can which has

45:29

a nozzle on the end. The nozzle goes into

45:32

the valve of the lighter and

45:35

you would just insert the

45:37

bututane can into the lighter, and

45:39

after just a couple of seconds, like five seconds,

45:42

it would refill the

45:44

fuel chamber on the butane

45:46

lighter, and you'd want to wait a little

45:48

bit for the fuel inside the lighter to reach

45:50

room temperature and then you can start using

45:52

it again. Over time, a

45:55

new variant on the butuane lighter showed

45:57

up. This is the piece of electric lighter. I

45:59

told you we kind of come back to it. So

46:02

remember how I said. Quartz is an interesting material.

46:04

If you apply mechanical stress to it, the

46:06

quarts generates an internal electric charge.

46:09

Well that's a manifestation of the piece of electric

46:11

effect. So a piece of electric lighter

46:13

uses this particular phenomenon in order

46:16

to generate a spark. So there's no ferro

46:18

serrium in a uh

46:20

in a in this kind of lighter, or or

46:22

flint if you prefer, there's none

46:24

of that instead. A piece of

46:26

electric lighter typically has a button

46:29

on the lighter. If you push down

46:31

on that button, you would probably feel a

46:33

click, kind of like a click pen. But what's

46:35

happening is that the button is typically doing

46:37

two things. It's transferring the

46:39

force you've just exerted on the button

46:41

onto some piece of electric material, and

46:44

maybe not directly, it might pull

46:46

back and then release a spring loaded

46:48

hammer which then strikes this piece of

46:50

electric material that makes the material

46:53

generate an electric charge, and that creates

46:55

a difference of voltage between two little electrodes

46:58

and causes a small spark to

47:00

fly between them. And at

47:03

the same time, pushing down

47:05

on the button also releases

47:08

a valve that opens up the

47:10

pathway to the fuel chamber, so

47:13

beutane gas escapes at that

47:15

same moment, so the beautane

47:17

gas starts to come out of

47:19

the chamber through a nozzle at

47:22

the same time as a spark is flying across

47:24

the nozzle and that ignites the

47:26

escaping gas and you get a flame. So

47:30

you see this in a lot of different types of lighters,

47:32

including like pocket lighters, but also

47:35

the utility lighters that I think about, like

47:37

the ones that have the very long stems

47:39

and use them to light candles

47:42

or fireplaces, that kind of thing. Uh,

47:44

they typically have the piezo electric

47:47

approach as opposed to a

47:49

faroh cirium kind of lighting system.

47:52

So you can find lighters like this that actually

47:55

fit into lighter cases, like

47:57

the ones made famous by Zippo. So

47:59

if you preferred that mechanism to

48:01

the faro syrium traditional type

48:03

of lighter, you could swap them out, and you can take out

48:05

one lighter and you put another one in the same case.

48:08

And a neat thing about this particular type of lighter

48:10

is that although it uses an electric spark

48:12

to ignite a flame, there's no need

48:15

for a battery or anything like that. There's

48:17

no source of electricity apart from

48:19

the piece of electric material. So as long

48:21

as that material is inside the lighter,

48:24

and as long as the mechanism that exerts

48:26

mechanical stress onto the material

48:29

is still working, you should still be able

48:31

to generate sparks. One other

48:33

type of lighter I should mention before I close

48:35

out this episode works on yet another

48:38

principle, and this would be the old

48:40

fashioned car cigarette lighters.

48:42

And you don't typically see these in cars

48:44

anymore, at least not as a standard option,

48:47

but it used to be a really common

48:49

feature. So they look like little

48:51

knobs that are typically

48:53

somewhere in the dashboard and you would push

48:55

it in and it would remain pushed in

48:57

for a short while before it would

49:00

hop back out, kind of like a toaster. You

49:02

would then pull the knob out of

49:04

the dashboard and the

49:06

other end from the handle would

49:08

be glowing red hot, and you would apply

49:11

that into whatever it was he wanted to light, which

49:13

more often than not was a cigarette, and

49:16

the heat was greater than the ignition temperature

49:19

of the material and it starts to burn. Now,

49:21

I have a distinct memory of being a kid

49:24

and my dad patiently explaining

49:26

to me that the cigarette lighter on the

49:28

dashboard of our old Dodge

49:30

Dart would in fact get super

49:33

super hot. He was trying to teach me to be

49:35

careful and not to play with it, right,

49:38

because this was in the nineteen seventies when

49:41

such things were common, And I remember

49:43

I was a particularly dumb kid, No

49:46

big surprise there. You guys all know who

49:48

I am. And I immediately didn't believe

49:50

him. So I touched it and I burnt

49:52

myself because I was dumb.

49:54

But I learned a valuable lesson, one

49:57

that my dad was telling the truth, and to that

49:59

the facts. Car cigarette lighters

50:01

get really really hot. But how do they

50:04

get hot. Well, in the end

50:06

of the car cigarette lighter, the business end,

50:08

the end that lights stuff. There's

50:11

a coil of wire, and it's typically

50:13

made from something like nichrome, which

50:16

is nickel chrome, and

50:18

it's a generic term for a group of alloys

50:20

that are made up of surprise, surprise, nickel

50:23

and chrome and sometimes other stuff like iron.

50:25

This material has a pretty high

50:28

resistivity. That means it's

50:30

resistant to electrical current flowing

50:33

through that material and quick

50:35

refresh. You can think of all

50:37

materials everywhere as being on a spectrum

50:40

of conductivity. At one

50:43

end extreme end of that spectrum,

50:45

you have stuff that allows electricity to pass

50:48

without any resistance at all. The electrons

50:50

just flow through it, there's no problem

50:52

there. These would be super conductors,

50:55

and typically we don't see superconductors unless

50:57

we have some very special circumstances involved,

50:59

such is cooling stuff down to

51:01

near absolute zero. On

51:04

the opposite end of the spectrum, you have material

51:06

that pretty much prevents any electrical current

51:08

from passing through that material at all. It

51:11

just stops. These would be insulators.

51:14

Nichrome resists the flow of electricity.

51:16

It allows it to move through, but it resists

51:19

the flow, and in the process the

51:21

metal heats up as some of that energy

51:24

from the electricity gets converted over into heat.

51:27

So if you had a coil of this

51:29

stuff, and you passed an electric current through it,

51:32

the stuff heats up. And that's the

51:34

basic principle behind inventions like

51:36

the electric stove and electric space

51:38

heaters. They use wires or

51:41

uh components like this with

51:43

high resistivity to convert electrical

51:45

current into heat. Now,

51:47

well, when it's not in use, the car cigarette lighter

51:50

isn't in contact with the electrodes

51:52

that would otherwise push electric current

51:54

through the lighter. But when you pressed the

51:56

lighter in, it would engage

51:58

with those electrodes and the current would come from

52:01

the car's overall electrical circuit. Inside

52:04

the lighter is a spring, so

52:06

it compresses as you push it in, and

52:08

there's a little retaining clip that would

52:10

engage when it was pushed all the way

52:12

in and would hold the cigarette

52:15

lighter in that compressed state,

52:18

so it's in contact with those electrodes.

52:21

But the clip, the retaining clip was

52:24

made from a bimetallic material.

52:26

Now, as the name implies, bimetallic

52:28

stuff is made up of two metals, and in

52:30

this case, it's a strip that's

52:32

made up of two different materials

52:35

that expand at different rates

52:37

when they get hot. So you press

52:39

the lighter in the current goes

52:41

through the nichrome wire, the wire

52:44

heats up and the biometallic restraining

52:46

clips starts to get hot until

52:48

one side of the clip begins to expand faster

52:50

than the other and it starts to curl away. Eventually

52:53

that bends the clip enough so that the spring

52:55

is released and the cigarette lighter pops

52:58

back out from the dashboard. It disc engages

53:00

from the electrodes and you're able to

53:02

pull it out the dashboard and that end

53:04

is super hot. These days,

53:07

you typically seen car manufacturers offer

53:09

this as an electrical outlet rather than

53:12

a cigarette lighter, and you could plug something

53:14

again, like a converter so that you can plug in

53:16

your your cell phone chargers, that kind of

53:18

stuff. But occasionally

53:21

you can find car manufacturers

53:23

that offer it as an option or you can get

53:25

as an aftermarket thing for your

53:27

vehicle. But really we've seen a

53:29

massive decline in car

53:31

cigarette lighters over the years, as we've also seen

53:34

a decline in cigarette smoking in general,

53:36

which I considered to be a good thing. So

53:38

there you have it. That's how lighters

53:40

work, and I think it's a good idea to have a few

53:43

lighters just in case of emergencies.

53:45

Such as loss of power. A good piezo

53:47

electric lighter, particularly one of those utility

53:50

lighters I was talking about that half a long stem

53:52

that could be really handy if you need to light

53:54

stuff like candles or lamps in

53:56

the case of a power power failure. It's also

53:58

good to know how to use pharaoh sirium

54:01

like pharaoh sirium sticks or fire

54:03

starter sticks. I think it's a must

54:05

have component if you ever

54:08

plan on doing stuff like camping, or

54:10

you want to have like a survivalist gear

54:12

package, you gotta have fire

54:15

starter sticks. It's a reliable way to generate

54:17

the sparks you need to start campfires.

54:19

You don't have to worry about water ruining your matches,

54:22

or you don't have to carry combustible fuel,

54:24

which in itself could be a danger. The

54:26

good old fire sticks will really serve you

54:28

well in those cases. But that

54:31

wraps up this episode. If you guys

54:33

have suggestions for future topics

54:35

for tech stuff, let me know. You can get

54:37

in touch with me on social media Facebook

54:40

or Twitter. The handle for both of those

54:42

is text stuff h s. W LL

54:44

look forward to hearing from you, and I'll

54:46

talk to you again really soon.

54:53

Tex Stuff is a production of I heart Radio's

54:55

How Stuff Works. For more podcasts

54:57

from my heart Radio, visit the i heart

54:59

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55:02

you listen to your favorite shows.