Butan Torch Repair

Repair or clean at your own roofs, these things can blow up. Hi Dave Smith here. I'm gonna take a look at some torches and how to clean them or if it's even possibly clean 'em or if you should waste the time on it. Today I'm gonna be working on three specific types of torches, trying to clean them after they've been plugged up with ba butane. This is the old style max flame torch. This is my newer style max flame torch with the sight glass. And then this is the newest torch that I'm selling. I call this the SSC 2 0 2 1 1. Um, it looks very similar to a big shot, uh, made by blazer, but uh, it's actually in my mind a better torch than that torch. And I'll explain that. I actually did in one video already, but I'll show you where we can clean this one. Uh, also just in case. So one of the big problems you have with these small torches is bad butane. You can get three times, five times, 10 times, eight times. It doesn't matter. Once in a while you'll get a bad can. When you're buying butane, you need to see somewhere on it where it says it's filtered or refined. Typically that means five times refined. If it says five times, this is 11 times. If it's 11 times for years, I suggested that you not use anything shorter than a five x. But what I found after a period of time too, is that I've been been getting bad five X and been bad 11 x. What I mean by that bad is that they've got contaminants in 'em to plug your torch. Most of the time when these small torches go bad, people just throw 'em away and say, okay, I don't know what happened. We've, we've gone from there. Sometimes it's real obvious problems of what's happened. They've gotten them overheated and melted 'em. Let me show you one of those. Oh, here's a good example in this area here you can see the housing's been all melted where the flame has been forced back up into there and burning clear up here. And that usually happens when you have your torch too close to whatever your substrate is. For example, if you're up against the charcoal block, So for example, this is about the right distance from the block where your blue tip just hit your materials. But when you make noises like that or get that close, you're causing yourself all kinds of trouble. When you do that, that's when you melt things like this right here. If you have no desire to sit through the disassembly of all three torches, here's where they're located at so you can fast forward. The first torch we're gonna do today is gonna be one of the old style max flame torches. This particular torch is leaking out of the bottom. There's a valve in here. If you have a uh, screwdriver, sometimes you can push that and reseal it. Maybe there's some junk in it, didn't fix it, so we'd have to take that out and replace it or clean it. In the meantime, I'm gonna show you a a, a classic example of a bad flame. This is a little that's full, full temperature on this particular torch that usually happens when this little valve plugs up that's inside there and that's what happens with the bad butane. I'm gonna turn that off. What we should have been seeing here is something along this line And that that's one of the earlier torch that's working like it should. That's about right amount of plant. I'm not gonna bother fixing one of these torches because I don't use them anymore. But what I will do is I will point out the areas that you need to be looking at to see that if you need to clean one, where you're gonna go from, I'm gonna go ahead and sim disassemble this completely while it's on camera so that you can see all the steps to do that. First thing I'll do is there's two screws down here in the bottom. I'm gonna take those two screws out that's gonna allow the cover to slide off this CIDs off that cover right here, this valve here. I'm gonna go ahead and remove that valve. Now it takes a little screwdriver slot right in there and when I do, I'm gonna have a lot of leakage. You should probably drain the torch before you do this and have a well ventilated area. Once you do this with the valve that you have, I really don't recommend that you do this repair. If you get one of these leaking bad enough and you strike it, I can see you blowing yourself up pretty easily. It looks as though this is one piece, But you can certainly see the damages done in here. It just broke off when I did that. Apparently they melt it together. So I thought this valve was Serviceable, but apparently it's not. If it leaks, you need to have this whole new piece and replace it as one piece. Well, you can get these pieces. I have no idea because I've never seen anybody selling 'em. You might get 'em back with manufacturer, but you're looking at a 40 or $50 torch here. Uh, you might just be better off at that point. If this valve is leaking, send it back to whoever you got it from or throw it away. Okay, so that's that part. So let's get this top part apart. Service. There is some serviceable stuff in here. It appears that that was not very serviceable. Alright, so there's four screws here. 1, 2, 3, 4. You have the larger screws on the side here. Once that's on there, then you can flip this off. It just pulls right off the end as it does. You can see there's a nice piece of ceramic in there that the striker goes through a little hole that's in there. Okay, here's a little bit better. Look at what we've got cooking here. The wire is coming out right over here. That's the same wire that is on here, that is right here. It has to slide through that piece. It'll slide through this hole right there. Okay, so we pulled those pieces off. Now we're looking at some things here. If all these little holes that are in the end here get plugged up, you're gonna have a difficulty. Uh, a lot of times what'll happen is people will get this so hot that they'll actually melt those holes together. It looks as though right here it's probably happened 'cause you can see there's nothing happening, there's no holes there at all. Whereas if you look at one of the newer torches, it's really this, this, it's really easy to see that these holes are open and clear and that's where you're gonna get those little blue lights of blue flames, which you've got running this one. You can also see the wire sticking through here for a chart for sparking. So we pulled this wire back out of that hole. It's got some insulation on it here and now what has to happen is this plate that we pull these apart have to come off. So we got all four of the screws out, it should just pop open here. So that side came off and now we can see all the mechanism. This mechanism here is for Higher and lower. This mechanism here is part of our striker assembly so that when we push this button here, uh, unfortunately we have to pull this down. If you see this, we can pull that down and that unlatched and that allows us to strike that that direction. When it does, there's a little hammer in there that hits and uh, makes the spark go into this wire here. That wire has the spark come on out the end and sparks when it transfers over here and it makes the spark out here. Alright, so next this stuff has to come out. When you're going back together, there's a little spring in there, so you gotta keep your thumb over it, keep that spring together and get that little piece out. Set that aside and then this will pull up and off and then you can take that spring and I think you gotta wait. Nope, it was able to unscrew it and then this flops open. Now the rest of this stuff isn't gonna come apart until we get the other side off. So let's go ahead and do that. That's gonna be these two screws right here. So we've gotten those two screws out. Let's take the back case off. Now we can see a little clearer. This mechanism here, this little valve was installed in the, in this system and it pulls up on this lever And that's what lets the gas from the chamber here back out through this little nozzle. So that nozzle is the thing that gets plugged. So we'll pull this little wire off of here. I pull this lock back, pull the wire off and then this will come out. And then this is the nozzle that is plugged real, real bad here. This is the one that usually if you've overheated the torch will get burned up and you won't be able to fix it if you haven't overheated it. This will be nice and shiny and you'll be able to maybe see those holes. Let's see if we can widen this up a little bit and not very well, but there's a bunch of little bitty holes in here that, uh, get plugged up and you can soak this in denatured alcohol or something along that line. Uh, then take this hose off. Oh, that's not how you're gonna take it off. Apparently this was really, really hot. Usually they'll just pull off And uh, then you can take and blow clean that off with alcohol, fill it with alcohol, and then blow back this direction. And a lot of times, well, and sometimes you can get them to clean up a little bit. This torch has a few problems. It's never gonna be repairable. I'm not gonna try to put it back together. Okay, so this is gonna get, okay, let's come back, back down. Okay, so this is gonna be assembled exactly in the reverse way where you just took it apart. This is gonna go back in. That hose is gonna go back on there. The backside's gonna go on. Then these things are gonna start laying in place. Uh, actually this will go on last before we close up this edge up front. And one of the things that you gotta be really careful of is this little spring likes to go flying out of places and it's already disappeared from the pile. Here it is right here. It goes up inside this little piece right here. And it's gonna be a part of this assembly when it goes back together. So that's all I'm gonna show with this porch. But that's what you'd do. You'd, you'd, you'd uh, take that valve and clean it and Otherwise high probability is if the ends of this thing look as bad as this one, you're gonna be throwing it away anyway. Alright, That's all I'm gonna do for that particular torch. Thanks for watching. So this torch is our Sightglass torch. This is the second torch that I've used over the years or a second different style. The torch that I've used over the year. I really like this one a lot better because it allowed you to fill to a specific spot and you never have to wonder where you are. The biggest problem was, and I took 'em out of service and because I kept getting them back for cleaning and that was due to the bad butane more than anything. But I also had a lot of, uh, leakage when you're filling it 'cause. And so one of the reasons that I replaced these torches is that these valves a lot of times were really hard to fill and you get a lot of spillage when you're filling 'em, so you're wasting butane. However, I really love this torch for another couple of reasons. And one of those is that it had a cleanable nozzle, which meant that if you did get bad butane, uh, meaning that it was dirty, you could still do something with it. And here this one again, has been overheated real bad. You can see the, the, the burned area on this storage. So let's go ahead and take it apart here. So in order to get the nozzle out, which controls the amount of butane that goes in, we have to start by taking these screws off And slide it out. And now, so once you've taken those two screws out, you have to be cautious. But, and note where this plastic tubing is right here because that when you put this back together, that wire that's in there has to go inside that tubing so that it holds it against this piece of wire here. So once you've got that set aside, then the next thing that can come apart is way down inside here. It's pretty straightforward. We don't have to take all that whole assembly out. All we gotta do is find our deep socket that's gonna fit down in there to get to that valve to clean it. Alright, so the socket that I'm gonna use here is a three sixteenths and I'm gonna go in here and put that in there and take that valve out. You can see it here on a disassembled torch that that would go and fit just like that in there on there. Now it's pretty tight so you gotta put a lot of pressure towards it, Meaning That you're gonna push in with the socket as you take it and start loose. Now sometimes there's an o-ring in there that stays on the valve and other times the stays in place. I'm gonna go ahead and pull that out. Now remember, you don't have to take it down to this level to get that valve out. You don't have to be able to see it, you just have to be able to get it out of there. So once we get it out of there, we should be able to go ahead and take a look at it. See that three 16 socket doesn't fit really well so there's probably a metric that fits a little bit longer, but you gotta have a, a cut down long socket to get it in there. So now let's see if we can get some real close up views here. Oh, I guess that's pretty close up except they can't even find it. It's so close up. Alright, so if you look here, you can see this little sve like a fair in there. You see that little sve like a fair well that gets plugged and that gets plugged with your contaminants that are in the uh, butane. So what I do is I soak that in denatured alcohol. You could probably soak it in just about anything. And then I come over here and I blow through this hole with my air hose Where I've got it right up against there. And then, and when I do that blows the rest of the stuff out. You might wanna wear some rubber gloves if you're actually doing denatured alcohol, but you gotta have some pressure on that. I don't know if a can of little compressed air like you buy for cleaning your computer or work there or not. I would suspect that it probably would if you have that and you don't have an air compressor. And the reason I do is because if you look at this sve, it never has a whole lot of pressure on it from the other side. It has a control valve. So as long as there's a control valve there, it's not, it's not forcing it into that thing and, and packing it really badly. Alright, so that's what goes in there. So you can see this one did not come out with the O-ring. So the O-ring stayed in there somewhere, uh, without that O-ring in there. You're gonna have uh, a lot of nastiness. That one's still in there. So it'll be this one here. See if we can point that o-ring out from where we can see it with our camera. Uh, Maybe not, yes, it's there but it's hard to see. Um, You might be able to see it through there if you're looking at it. If it wasn't for a camera you could see it, you could probably, I can see it through the sides when I'm looking down through this way. Okay, anyway, so then what happens is this would go back in, you might have to play with it and put a little bitty tiny bit of force on it and there I go. I lost that stinking. There it is right there in front of me. Okay, so back in you go and just kind of play with it and you'll get past the O-ring. Once you do, you should feel it tightened up with your fingers. Once it tightens up completely with your fingers, then you'll be able to take the wrench to it to get the final on it. Okay, so there it is, it's there and it's slipping on me a little bit. So I'm gonna take it and put my wrench on it and just give it a little bit of a, a tightness so you don't have to force it a lot. This the wrench just slipped right then. Okay, that's all it needs to be just on there. Okay, so then we would go ahead and reassemble by taking our, our piece here very carefully, making sure that it gets into the rubber. So it's gonna go through this slot right here. And that rubber's gonna go on Right here. Uh, come on. I'm gonna push that out ways and start it first and I'm gonna slide this back into the system. Then we're back into with our two little bitty screws. Now these screws are really easy to strip, so if you're having to force 'em, you're doing something wrong. The other little torch that we just took apart earlier, the, the jumbo torch, it's a real booger. Uh, it's really easy to strip 'em and, and really it's, you can even can break 'em off in there with not a whole lot of effort. Okay, so there's that and then there's our handle back on. We'll put our screw back on. Okay, so that's how easy that one is to clean. Hi Dave Smith here again today we're gonna take apart our SSC 2 0 2 1 1 torch and show you uh, the mechanism for cleaning the screen that's in here. I really love this torch a lot because of that. It also has some, a better heat control here on this side here where this big por keeps us outside from getting hot. Uh, these ones here were just the little one in the older styles where this one's a much bigger one and it actually has uh, uh, better cooling effects. So let's get started. Start with this little screw right here. A little easier than some of the US 'cause there's only one. Okay, next we have these two screws in here, which are a pretty good size, a little bit bigger than that of the torch so that they're a little, uh, easier to get out and uh, a little easier to put back in. What I love about this is the cleaning of it is really, really quick and uh, it has a lot of really, really good properties in terms of, of heat ranges. Now I gotta be careful here because we've got this wire on here and that wire, if you look here, is bent over. We need to unbend it a little bit. Uh, See if we can see it here. This wire needs to bend up. Now look how close it is there. That's pretty important. If you look at my screwdriver, it's just about the distance from that to my screwdriver, the width of the blade. You don't wanna force that out there 'cause you can tear stuff up back inside. So eventually you'll get that back up in the slot and you should be able to pull that off. Here it comes. Now before I go any farther, I'm gonna remember to take and straighten that wire out so that I don't have to fight it when I'm going back together. Okay, so that's done. Now look at how this is right out here in the open. I just love that I do and it's an o little tiny bit bigger than the other ones on the other torches. So let's see, that's a, uh, looks like a one quarter inch standard American style socca. It's a little loose on that, so there's probably a, a metric that's a little bit better. Uh, didn't have too much trouble getting that out. Just loose. Uh, here it's now the o-ring came off with it and I'm gonna try blowing this up. So, uh, so this'll be good. Now this thing's pretty tiny so if I can give you an example. Here's the screw that I took out. Um, What's going on is we wanna leave that overing intact. This nozzle has a tiny hole in the steel plate that goes below the brass hole here. So I'm gonna turn that around and we can see inside. And now there is a slot in there and that slot in there needs to be fitted with a screwdriver and that one is too big. No, maybe not. Yep, that one's in there and turn around until it gets it. And then if it's too hard to turn by hand, you may need to grab it with a wrench and start turning counter-clockwise. So very carefully getting it out. Now here's a a real problem. This thing is so tiny that if you sneeze or you don't watch when you get it outta there, it's not spring loaded or anything. But if it falls out, I've lost one of these in, in the first torch I was taking apart when I was testing the torches to see what I liked and it disappeared and I never have found it. So let's see if we got it there Yet. So now then you can see here, the very first thing is there's a little ring here, a little brass ring that basically goes on last and then see that little screen underneath it and then that's nothing there. Okay? So that means that that's gonna have to go back together and let's see if there's anything else in there. There's a little steel piece in there, I thought. Yeah, you can see it here in this case that stayed in there. I'm happy with that. Leave it, stay in there as long as it's clean. Otherwise sometimes when you're putting this stuff back in it cos and and does different things. So I cleaned this so I'm not gonna clean it again. So I'm gonna gonna see if I can just gently drop that in here. Lemme see if I get this really close to the camera. We'll actually see it. That's about a good view as we're gonna get. But you can see how tiny the holes are, but at least there's, you can see them and you can see that there's garbage in there. Okay, so we're gonna now try to put it back in and it didn't go. Now one of the problems I've had before with this is to get it to sit down flat because it has to be flat before you put the other piece in. Now there it just flipped over I think. Yep, it's laying down in there flat. Now I can see it. I think that's what I'm seeing. It's definitely not leaned up against the side. You can see the threads there. Okay, so that's good. Now then this little guy can go in a little bit of mother's magic helper. My Little brows ring. Yeah, it's definitely in there on top of it. You could tell that by looking at the threads and actually the uh, iPhone camera works pretty good for seeing that little stuff. Okay, so that's in there now. And this piece goes back in. I know a lot of you folks out there making jewelry or have much more delicate hands than I do and much better tools for looking at this tiny stuff. Alright, so now just in case it's not in there all the way down, let's just start real gently going in. You shouldn't feel it giving a lot of resistance before it gets way down. And even then, um, it shouldn't be springy and it's not, it went all the way down solid. Okay, so now I'm gonna take it, hang onto to this again. And it's a solid fit. It's, there's, once it's down, it's down, there's no turning it. Okay, that's in there. Now we're gonna come back onto here. Do this all by hand. Don't even take a chance with the wrench until you've uh, snugged it up manually by hand. And then, uh, it's a very, very minor amount of tightness, but it's just, it just, it comes to a solid stop. That's where you stop. Remember it's got a little o-ring in there. There's squishing. So you don't want to take this down to where it's, it either strips the thread or the other. So based on what you felt when you pulled it apart, it's probably just a few inch pounds. Alright, so now we're gonna come back out a little bit so I can do this a little bit better. There it is. There's the hole wire goes through. It's right next to one of the bolt holes. Well, it's not as straight apparently as I thought it was 'cause it doesn't wanna fit in the hole very well. Let's take another slot at it here. Hole looks a lot bigger but fighting it for some reason here. There we go. Had a little bit of a, a rough edge on the insulation. Alright, now we gotta keep that thing straight. Now we gotta go out back into this hole over here. And so it's talking to me too. I'm having to actually hold it out here, having to hold it out here while I feed it in. And once I finally got close to the inside, then it should snap over and it did. Alright, so we'll put those two screws back in very carefully. They're pretty big. So if you have any resistance, you probably got it cross threaded. Get 'em both started a little bit before I tighten anything down. One of the other torches the other day, I had one that was cocked a little bit and I cross red it and I broke the head off. This is another one of those places you don't wanna overtight, but you want to be firm enough to where you know that you're not gonna be coming loose inside. And actually, once you're down that far, you can tight, you can turn it up pretty good. Okay, so now that it looks like our last step is gonna be bending this wire back, well not our last step. It looks like the next thing we're gonna do is bend this wire back over. So we'll see that we can get it bent back to about where it was. It was about the width of this screwdriver, if I remember right from here to there. Okay, let's give it a shot a little bit closer. I could barely see the flame there, so that might mean that once in a while it's gonna not make it okay. Come on. There we go. Okay, so now we're ready for our cover. Well, that whole little tiny thing, where is it? Got it on backwards. That doesn't help any, that makes more sense, don't it? Okay, now this is one that has a little bitty tiny screw and I seem to be really challenged with my fingers this morning. All right, that's that. And then our torch is back together. Okay, we're ready to go now. Let's go ahead and start it up. All right, that's it for that torch.

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