Fascination with fire... I can relate:evil: At least to a degree I started looking into lasers a while back because I was kind of disappointed by what I found out about lighters. I wanted to spend $100 or less on a good lighter that can take any abuse, be left filled for months, and working when I need it. Unfortunately what I found left me discouraged. Reviews even on the most expensive lighters were mixed once I took the time to look. I mean given all the technology around today you'd think a lighter would be something basic, but the general consensus was that for most tasks nothing really beats a zippo in reliability... IF you fill it, or a cheap bic. Very disappointing.
I've actually drawn up a few designs, but have no idea how to put them into practice. So instead I use an small industrial blow torch, a zippo, and small calibri lighter for the time being. I can also easily use the 445nm laser:eg:
With regards to knives, I leave them whenever I need to go into any kind of secured situation, but at other times, it's really not an issue. I've researched the subject quite a bit and the fact of the matter is in most cities, 3" or less is perfectly legal. If the knife is not used in committing a crime, or even found after you are arrested for a crime, it's not really an issue either so long as you didn't actually use it for said crime. More often than not the object in question (basically ANYTHING dangerous) is confiscated unless you can provide proof that you have a good reason for having it.
On the plus side, I'm a pretty big guy, so most cops don't bother with me unless they have to. I don't give them a reason so it all works out. Interestingly enough, got patted down and had all my usual stuff on me. Ended up talking to the cop and we went to drink(He was going off shift). He was at the end of his shift. The key was, as he started to pat me down, I started telling him before he got anywhere exactly what he would find.
One word of advice... drop the hidden pocket stuff, to anyone but the laziest bum cop it will be super obvious.
I, at one point, had a thing about disassembling lighters. There was a junk stall nearby me that sold what were presumably factory reject lighters for £1 each. All shapes, all flame styles. I made up standardised names for them, so that when i was explaining it to people i wouldn't have to keep describing them; torch lighters have a flame like a bunsen-burner working flame and had the advantage of being equally hot all the way through... the disadvantage? The flame is almost invisible. Coloured torch lighters took advantage of the fact that the flame was equally hot throughout by having a piece of metal or alloy at the bottom which gives the flame a colour. Torch burners were even hotter, like a bunsen burner roaring flame. The payoff being that the flame was cold at the bottom, but it was able to obliterate basically anything at the tip. The other advantage being that because the fuel\oxygen mixture was good, if flame temperature wasn't an issue, big, big flames could be achieved (although this made ignition unreliable)
So the next step was to distinguish the difference. Disassembly time!! Generally, in the standard lighters there was a little metal nozzle. When butane flowed through this nozzle it was kept away from oxygen. It would then leave and mix with air before being ignited (by a peizo spark or a flintwheel spark... problem with peizo sparks being that you had to work out a working circuit and they often break, problem with flintwheels being the necessity to change the flints). The size of fuel tank was irrelevant, but it was biggest on the lighters designed for lighting cookers. The torch lighters had a little ceramic-and-metal peice with a hole in the bottom and side. The bottom would slot into a plastic tube where it would receive the butane and air would diffuse in through the hole in the side and be forced up as a mixture with the butane through two holes in the top. The ceramic casing then combined the two output holes into one high-quality flame (without it there were two weird flames). Finally, the torch-burner peice was all-metal. It had the flame hole-in-the-side system, but this would lead through to the middle of the output end. The butane was then pushed through 6-8 little holes which formed a ring around the central hole where the oxygen is output.
So what do i do? I test, i play and i figure out. My plan was to build something at the end, but i never got round to it
. I did find, amusingly, that if the torch-burner nozzle is fed butane too fast and not held in properly, because the input hole is much smaller and the feed rate is slower, builds pressure in the input tube (connecting the nozzle to the tank). It can then be sent rocketting across a room :crackup: and i also found that the flame-height adjuster on most fuel tanks is actually a screwthread and if you turn it too far it pops out and all the butane comes rushing out. I've had a few fuel tanks sent rocketting across the room as a result of that.
...fun stuff... I might get round to building my many-flame lighter this holiday, now that i know where to get metal hobby-boxes.
And, about the knives, I will probably be happy to carry one in a few years time. Atm, i'm a teenager with long hair and an affinity for fingerless gloves and that looks angry when walking through places with a high concentration of policemen (nothing against policemen, they just reside in areas where there are also high concentrations of thugs, pregnant teenagers, ram-it-in-your-face dogmatic Christian preachers and various other forms of shit). So i'm a prime target to be searched. And, i don't own a huge amount of knives so i wouldn't want them to be taken off me. Also, i'm absolutely tiny so if that's what policemen base their searchings on, i'm a prime suspect.
And, i didn't ever really store contraband in the hidden pockets (except the firecracker, but i stopped that once i knew they were illegal :eg
. Although i do store my pyrotechnic compositions in there if i'm taking them anywhere to show people. Doesn't really make the situation worse, and if it reduces the likelihood of it being found even slightly then it's a good thing. Although if it's white then that might be not the best of ideas...
:crackup::crackup::crackup: Personally I'm an @$$ man, but keep reaching!
Also I find the minor linguistic differences fascinating.
Sorry sir, but you appear to have misunderstood me. :thinking:
Chez actually keeps interesting stuff down there. Anything that she's found that's small and cute, anything she's stolen from me recently and anything she doesn't want me to see. She has this bizzare idea that for some reason once it's down there i'm not going to find it. Doesn't seem to occur to her that i put my hand down there far more often than i do her bag, or her pockets.
I got her a tiny glowstick, the kind used for fishing rods one time.
Conversation:
Me: Look at this! *crack and shake*
Her: What is it?... Awww! It's tiny!! *stuffs inside bra*
...women are strange... :crackup:
. I got one that was identical shortly afterward, but anyway. I don't hand my lighters to strangers anymore.
