S.T. Dupont Lighter Owners Club

[EA-6B]

Line1 New Parts, Round 2!

Line1 Tall fill valves with correct threads, Pipe-Flame nozzles that I'm familiar with, & a complimentary Line1 Tall D-Ring fill cap for me to check out.

Everything seems OK after a cursory inspection. The fill cap even has a little red paint on it.

Threads seem to match up against my spare OE L1Tall valve:

Checked parts fitment across the OE & aftermarket valve & cap combos, & checked that my fill valve still fit the new valves, & that it passed gas (lol):

Checked fitment of the fill cap in my daily, & it looks good:

I'll store the new one in case I need it later. He was supposed to send a gold one, but this is what he had. It seems good enough that I feel like I can recommend his line of replacement caps as a suitable replacement if needed. It's not as nice as a stock one. I think it weighed a little less & might be aluminum - not brass, or at least less brass material in the build-up, & then chrome plated-not silver plated, but it seemed to fit well & should be good enough for most people if they need to replace a missing or damaged cap.

Next when I have a chance I'll check the guts of the new valve & then install it in my daily to test-run it, & I'll also drop in one of the Pipe-Flame nozzles just to make sure that they are good to go as well. These Pipe Flame nozzles look like the ones that I'm used to using.

 

[BT1974]

Line1 New Parts, Round 2!

Line1 Tall fill valves with correct threads, Pipe-Flame nozzles that I'm familiar with, & a complimentary Line1 Tall D-Ring fill cap for me to check out.

Everything seems OK after a cursory inspection. The fill cap even has a little red paint on it.

Threads seem to match up against my spare OE L1Tall valve:

Checked parts fitment across the OE & aftermarket valve & cap combos, & checked that my fill valve still fit the new valves, & that it passed gas (lol):

Checked fitment of the fill cap in my daily, & it looks good:

I'll store the new one in case I need it later. He was supposed to send a gold one, but this is what he had. It seems good enough that I feel like I can recommend his line of replacement caps as a suitable replacement if needed. It's not as nice as a stock one. I think it weighed a little less & might be aluminum - not brass, or at least less brass material in the build-up, & then chrome plated-not silver plated, but it seemed to fit well & should be good enough for most people if they need to replace a missing or damaged cap.

Next when I have a chance I'll check the guts of the new valve & then install it in my daily to test-run it, & I'll also drop in one of the Pipe-Flame nozzles just to make sure that they are good to go as well. These Pipe Flame nozzles look like the ones that I'm used to using.

Nice! Are you willing to share your supplier?

 

[briangray]

My Gatsby. Unfortunately, the gas leaks at the valve when I try to fill it so I think it needs servicing or something.

 

[EA-6B]

You can currently find what I bought on ebay, & maybe some other places.
Nice Gatsby! If it leaks from the fill-valve area while filling, then maybe the adapter isn't the correct one.

I pulled the OE valve out of my L1 Tall daily, & also disassembled the new aftermarket valve to clean & add some silicone grease to all of the seals:

This OE valve is the non-rebuildable style. It's still good, so I'll swap it back in after I test the new one for a few weeks/months. The new one has what I'm calling the 'L2 hybrid guts'.

Installed & filled, so far so good:

Now on to the Pipe-Flame nozzles. First things first, they flow a lot better than the first batch he sent me. Much higher flow rate at a lower velocity than the first batch. These turned out to be a little different than what I'm used to, & it led to a lower-than-usual fitment success rate. None of them clocked properly on my daily. I tested one loose on my daily & it would light easily, so at least I was able to test that. I think I can still work with them only because I have more lighters to try & fit them to. I was able to match two Pipe Flame nozzles across these six L1s, so about a 33% match rate.

But for someone who wants to buy a nozzle or even multiple nozzles hoping to match them to one lighter, then these might not be good because of a couple things that I noticed when test-fitting them. But what I noticed could lead to a "guaranteed fit kit", depending on how much QC this guy has during the manufacturing process. The main differences between what I've had in the past & these are a couple things. My original one seems to have a more acute chamfer & it lets me clock it a little further before tightening fully where it should be. The new ones don't seem to have much extra travel once the chamfer seats. So there's that. But I did notice that every one of the new ones were made identically & they would all stop at the same spot when testing across one lighter, which is different than what I'm used to. So it's possible that this guy has enough QC to be able to do an eight-nozzle set where four have the thread starting even with the center of one of the flat faces & the flame hole drilled every 90 degrees across the four of them, & then four more with the thread starting lined up with the corner of the flat faces, & the holes drilled every 90deg. If you have that set, then you could buy that & pretty much be sure that you'll be able to find one nozzle that you can tighten down over the corner, & one over the front end depending if you want to run it lefty or righty respectively.

 

[EA-6B]

Did some testing with the new Pipe Flame nozzle, you can see in the video that it burns much better than the first lot.
(Also note how smoothly the on-the-fly one-handed flame adjustments are being made, even with a glove on. Can't do that on a Line2. Can't do that on a Dunhill. Can't do that on an Old Boy. Etc. =) )

( Click here for video )

I'm lighting it off of my daily in order to keep the refreshed unit clean. But I plan to install one loose on my daily again (the new ones all aim '180-out' on my daily when tightened), just to try & test the ignition qualities again when actually using the flint & striker. The shape is a little different than what I've successfully used in the past, the head sits up a little higher & a couple other small differences, so I want to get another round of 'flint & striker' ignitions in before I'm comfortable sending any of these out on any of my refreshed units.

I tested the other refreshed lighter that I was able to match a Pipe Flame nozzle to, & wasn't happy with how that one was burning. The flame was hanging up on the corner of the lighter & deforming. It could be the nozzle, & I have another half-dozen which we already know will clock to the same position, so I'll swap a few more through on that one to see if that fixes it. So the bad news is if you want a Pipe Flame nozzle on one of my refreshed units, you might have only one or maybe two to choose from. The good news is I'm talking to the supplier & maybe he can offer an 8-nozzle kit by altering where the thread starts by 45deg on each nozzle, for people who have one lighter & want to be guaranteed that at least one of the 8 nozzles in the kit would be aimed where desired when fully tightened down. The problem being that the thread on the lighters themselves don't always start at the same spot either. The new nozzles that he sent me are all exactly identical, & on my daily they all tighten down & are aimed backwards at the flint, basically '180-out' of where I want it to be pointing, & I had similar issues on the others that I've tested so far except for one other match. I still think I can find matches for most if not all of them since I have more to check, but if I only had my daily, then none of them would have been good for me. But an 8 nozzle 'guaranteed fit kit' would probably be worth it if I only had one Line1.