Gasoline/petrol powered pocket warmer.

That might actually work.

Big Clive

Would it be possible to start it using a hot air gun?

Tom Scott

I don't remember mine having a catalytic converter, and it wasn't hard to light. You could just put a few drops of the lighter fluid on the wick and then light it.

Daddy Bearcat

I used to carry one of those in my pocket in the winter when I was in grade school. It worked great, and never once set me on fire. I think I still have it.

Daddy Bearcat

The moisture makes sense, burning hydrocarbons with oxygen in almost all cases one of the byproducts is water, which is why you see droplets spewing out of car exhausts.

Dustin

Ahhh see the door is till open because he hasn't GOT the Zippo one yet, eh? There's a still a chance! :)

Dustin

They make a whole bunch of different sizes of those handwarmers from the small to the comically large one issue is the smell and they seem to put out a lot of moisture when they run.

Lostngone

We used those as kids! You were doing it right Clive you basically just squirt lighter fluid in until it starts leaking out turn it upside down and shake it a few times so it isn’t completely drenched then put The little platinum catalyzer on. The way we did it was some of them actually had a little hole for an actual wick that you would light to get it going. next to the catalyzer or you just put a couple drips on the catalyzer and like the whole thing and by the time it burns off everything’s going that is NOT The recommended way but it works. And if I recall those platinum catalyzer is weren’t that much.

Lostngone

Oh good ness, I remember the pocket warmer that my stepfather had for many years for when he played golf in the winter. He and I had a relationship that we would always try to prank one another. His hand warmer used fuel sticks. I bought a quantity of them and set-about experimenting with them to make one that would burn for about 1 and a half hour. Long enough for him to get to the golf club and be on his first or second hole and a very small bang! The sticks were a mixture of charcoal and wood shavings molded into 4in long by 3/8in wide and 1/4 thick. I placed two in his hand warmer and lit them as normal and timed 1.5 hours and checked how much have burned. Roughly an inch. So I took two sticks and measured one inch from either end and made a mark. Took a scratch awl and carved out a 1/8in deep 1/4 long furrow in the middle of the stick at each mark towards the middle of the stick. So it would work if he lit either end. And a little bonus on real cold mornings he would light both ends. I put in a very small amount of black powder in each furrow and put a small pice of cello tape over the furrows. used my little model paint set to match the coating of the sticks. A slivery metallic color almost matched it perfectly. I made 4 of them. I tested two of the lit at both ends. And almost 1.5 hours later a small bang and puff of white smoke came out and the others were about 2 min apart. He got ready to go out and did his normal routine and it was a bit colder than normal so he lit both ends of each stick. That afternoon when he came home he regaled my brother and I a story that would last for a life time. About on the 3rd hole as he was about to tee off. He felt a small pop in his pocket with the hand warmer. As he said that I was about to burst out but the next words that were to follow made me strengthen my resolve and remained silent. He took out the warmer and removed it from the protective pouch and proceeded to open it up and BANG! it exploded in his face. With a modest puff of smoke. And the others in his party thought a shot had been fired. A few had ducked and covered. Then a few seconds later the other two went off after he dropped it. Clueing in everyone as to the source of the excitement. I only knew one person the could have done this little trick, My Boy! The others in the party were a bit miffed and said I would give that boy a good throttling if I were you. He replied I will do nothing of the sort. How ever I will give him a talking to about the dangers of explosives but I will want a complete detail on how he did it and make it so I didn't notice it. I so miss him. RIP MSgt. Rinehart.

Charles Bruckner

Hey Clive, no use of the FLIR to catch the upper operating temperature and the spread of heat? I'll let you slide THIS time! It would be interesting to see the difference between this and the actual Zippo product. I've suffered a few Zippo lighter clones over the years and it's amazing the difference in quality for something so simple.

Good tip! I doubt I'll ever follow through and actually buy one of these (I live in Australia, the need is slight unless I'm actually camping in winter, which happens rarely) but if I do, I'll remember it!

Chris Talbot

Good links man, thanks. Think I'll skip reading the patent though... I need to get up for work tomorrow morning and I've already had several beers. :)

Chris Talbot

The only good expression is a Regular Expression. :)

Chris Talbot

If you ever get a ton of similar, unwanted results on Google (like the vehicle converters) you can simply add '-vehicle' ( - with the word directly following it, without a space) at the end of your search string and that will exclude any page with that keyword. Also keep in mind that you can use boolean operators ' AND ', ' OR ' , etc. in your query.

Used one of these for years. Much better than the “rust powered” disposable heaters. I just put mine in a a ziplock bag to shut it down (lack of O2 to the catalyst) when I’m done with it (rather than waiting for fuel to run out as they recommend).

The Griffiths Family

and if you want some reading to put you to sleep, here is the US Patent, <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US2670728" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://patents.google.com/patent/US2670728</a> btw the PDF is the part you can really ready the page it's self is trash..

got a few links for ya, <a href="http://www.hakkin.co.jp/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.hakkin.co.jp/</a> - talks about the basics of how they work.. and <a href="http://mparam.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/handWarmers.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://mparam.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/handWarmers.html</a> - goes into pretty good depth about them and how the cheaper ones use Iron/Palladium to do the job.

Quite a cool (warm?) little gadget. Makes me miss my old Zippo lighter. Impractical compared to disposable (or butane refillable) lighters, prone to leaking in your pocket if you overfilled it... but I love the smell of Naphtha in the morning. Incidentally that's Naphtha in your yellow can (lighter fluid, white gas, camp fuel, light petroleum distillate, call it what you will), which is closer to kerosene than petrol. It would be interesting to see if it worked safely (or at all) with petrol which is much more volatile... I suspect the catalyst doesn't have enough surface area (or initial temperature - platinum-based cat converters in cars are basically ineffective for the first couple of minutes after a cold start) and it would just get "swamped" by all the fumes. Alternatively... maybe it sets itself on fire!

Chris Talbot