Semlos Propane Torch

This was a gift from a friend who knows of my passion for gadgets and my questionable judgement ... as I think about it, knowing me as well as they do and still giving me this has me rethinking our "friendship", but nevertheless, the Semlos Propane Torch is both awesome and frightening at the same time.

Easy enough to use, just screw in a camping size propane bottle, turn on the gas, and pull the trigger and you get a full-on 6" blue flame shooting out the barrel, ready to light the dampest camp fire, roast the skin off a marshmallow or a finger in under 3 seconds, or crisp up your crème brule in the kitchen.

But ... the Semlos Propane Torch can also be a bit persnickety and leaves little margin for error.

Lighting a fire one night I opened up the gas valve and pulled the trigger a number of times to no avail, it wouldn't light. Using my superpower, I continued to squeeze the trigger with dogged persistence while propane gas began to rise up around me. Fortunately I only managed to singe all of my arm hairs, burn off half the length of my eye lashes and curl a couple of eyebrows once the torch finally lit up with a ball of flaming gas around me.

I want to score this Four Stars because its awesome. I should at a minimum rate it Three Stars because it does everything it intends to do and does it just fine, but I feel I should score it Two Stars because I probably should have known better than to play with fire at my age.

I'm going to give it a few more rounds before I settle on a final score. Amazon has it for under $30.