Project Dupont

[CaptainQuintero]

Last week I managed to grab two 60's Duponts, a Ligne 1 small gold and a Ligne 1 Large with lacquer finish. Both were heavily marked down as they have had a lot of use and show cosmetic wear, the Ligne 1 small missing it's gas cap. But nothing tht I can't reverse! So fancied myself a little project bringing them back to their former glory.

This is how they started:

Ligne 1-









After digging around in my garage I found an old gas cap from a Ronson lighter, the thread fits perfectly! It will do until I can somehow source a gas cap, although they seem far and few between.



Ligne 1 Large-

[CaptainQuintero]

Cleaned both lighters up and WOW love the gleam of gold! The insides are like brand new already! Taken then lacquer off the Ligne 1 large so I can apply a new finish.

Flints came today also, sparks great! Waiting on two adapters to come from France so I can refil with regular butane cans as opposed to the Dupont make canisters.

[CaptainQuintero]

First undercoat now on the Ligne 1 large, not totally decided on the design I'm going to put on it or whether to personalise it etc, will test a few different designes ou and see how they come up after being buffed with some compound.

[JSPEC]

Looking great!

[Strada]

Wow very impressive, I have been considering starting something like that myself.

What kind of products is the white layer?

[CaptainQuintero]

Thanks!

-It's a white powder undercoat I discovered a few years ago when making some custom cricket bats:

Amazon Link

I'm pretty sure they have it in the US / US Amazon

It dries super quick ( 5 min) and has zero bleed

[Strada]

Nice, where did you pick up the Duponts? Flea market?

[CaptainQuintero]

eBay The small ligne 1 was spelt wrong on the listing so none of the sharks picked it up, and the lacquer one was also eBay

The same time I was picking these up, I was watching people bid hundreds of pounds for blatent fakes

[Michel1968]

Nice find!!! Can't wait to see the end result on the Ligne 1!

[CaptainQuintero]

The buffing compound I'd been waiting for came today so was able to finish up the Ligne 1 small. Gas adapter came too so was able to fire it up!

Not going to do any heavy poishing with this one, the scratches are out but leaving the dinks as I don't want to wear away the gold plate.

[CaptainQuintero]

Put the first coat of colour on today also:

After it dried I gave the whole thing a little buffering to bring the gold up, don't want to smudge any details at a later stage!

[Michel1968]

Cool! And I mean that... just love the DIY path...

[Strada]

Amazing, do you mind sharing the buffing compound

[CaptainQuintero]

Just regular brown compound then finished with a red jewlers rouge, only bought the buffer last week, nothing complicated!

[esse]

so cool, and what deal!

[CaptainQuintero]

Finished

Now I just need a day where it isn't raining, windy or hailing to light up a cigar!

[seanbeer]

fantastic ! i want to do one up too

[Michel1968]

Nice. Good retro-design!!

[Ginseng]

Nicely done! Beautiful lighters well-earned.

Wilkey

[pgotlieb]

Great job, they look beautiful!

[Habanos2000]

Great job on bringing them back to life!

[CaptainQuintero]

Thanks for the comments

The nice thing is when they get scrtched/chipped I can start it all again and do something different!

[CanuckSARTech]

Very cool. Well done indeed!

[CaptainQuintero]

Update- the ligne 1 large started to fail to hold gas recently so decided to study blueprints and tutorials of the insides if the ligne 1, long story short and 7 hours later I had somehow turned my lighter into a jet/torch lighter with a 5 inch flame :s

Silent a long time trying to find a DuPont repair service centre that didnt want £200 to service it and eventually found a place that would send it off to DuPont for a complete internal overhaul including spare parts apart from the hinge for £95

Decided to take the plunge and it finally came back today, it looks amazing! They either utterly replaced the internals or did such a good job that I can't tell the difference.

I'm excited now

[finecigar]

Great finds there!