MtnDon's Hand Made Class, 8th Annual BLF/OL contest entry

Looking good :+1:

Ouch. Saying that it is looking good in all its copper glory. :beer:

Here’s the piece today. Hard to see the glued joint if it wasn’t given away by the dried glue.

I lightly sanded off some of the excess glue and ran the drill bit through the holes to clean them up.

I test fitted the head piece…

Look! I could make a zoomie. Maybe. Not in the plan right now….

I need a piece of fairly thin stock for the next step in this fix. Those of you who have used a table saw may know that it can be difficult to cut thin slices of wood, as the standard slot size allows even 1/4” thick stock to be swallowed by the spinning balde. The solution is to have a table insert with a narrow slot. The yellow insert is the standard one that with the wide slot allows the blade to be tilted. The brown insert is a custom unit.

The brown insert comes with no slot at all. You install it with the blade retracted fully. Then turn on the saw and raise the blade. It cuts a slot just wide enough and there is no space for thin stock to drop through.

I just thought I’d show that in case there are table saw users who did not know about these inserts.

Some small pieces of thinly sawn stock. I am going to use the one in the forground next.

It is being glued on one end of the octagon piece that split and was reglued. The grain of the thin sheet will be a right angles to the grain on the octagon piece.

Lots of clamps…

I let that dry 4 or 5 hours. It can be seen that the excess glue is still not fully cured. It is safe enough to handel and work carefully at this point.

I drilled the 20mm hole through the thin piece center as well as drilling the 2 holes for the 4-40 screws through the thin sheet.

Next is to similarly cap the other end of the octagon section. For this end I’m using a contrasting wood, bocote.

This end is being done with two pieces butted up against each other. Lots of clamps. Can you see the wood?

It was left clamped for three hours and I trimmed the bocote a little. I’ll drill it tomorrow as well as sand off all the excess.

Beautiful work MtnDon! The combination of wood and copper is very appealing, and it will be a flashlight as well…

Nice recovery Don. :+1:

Thank you. :beer:

I trimmed the cap piece and bored thru with the 20mm bit.

To keep the wood head length about what it is I decided I needed to space the mcpcb farther forward in the 20mm borehole. So I needed a spacer, somewhat like we use a spacer when installing a triple with optic in a Convoy S2. I had some XHP50 mcpcb’s I had got somewhere several years ago and only used one. There are solid copper so I decided to use three of them, sanded smooth and soldered together. I applied solder paste to the interfaces and used steel screws to keep the spacers aligned after I drilled holes that match the 2-56 mcpcb to copper disc holes previously drilled.

After soldering and cooling they were cleaned up and then I filed the perimeter where needed to make the diamter match that of the mcpcb and be able to be inserted into the 20mm borehole. The three punched dimples are to remind me how to position these when being assembled with the mcpcb and the copper disc.

Here’s a trial fit of all the head parts, so far made.

…and here without the wood parts…

…bolted together… (I neglected photos as I sanded the sides of the octagon smooth. I used the same technique as back in post #23, using the bench sanding disc and the miter gauge.

What now? I have wrapped a litte tape around the end of a 3/4” OD dowel and loosely wrapped some tape to avoid marring the dowel shaft, just in case I want to use it for something in the future. Just enough tape was wrapped at the end to make the wood head a fairly tight fit on the dowel end.

Yes, I am cutting the head. After each few strokes I rotate the wood head 30 degrees or so and take a few more strokes with the saw.

… alomost cut thru…

There! Cut in approximate 1/3 - 2/3 pieces…

The thicker portion fits over the mcpcb and optic. Note that the optic is slightly recessed… or the wood piece a little too long.

I want the surface of the wood and the optic to be at pretty much the same height. The optic can be very slightly above the wood height… Sort of like this…

I used the bench belt sander to sand down the wood pieces as needed…

I sawed off a couple of the 4-40 screws to make studs to faciltate fitting the parts easier.

Here’s why I sliced the head into two parts. That is 0.030” thick lexan. It will be the optic retainer.

Next I’ll trim the lexan and sand it flush to the head side surfaces. I know there may be some light loss of lumens through the lexan, but I’ll trade that for the practicality of it retaining the optic.

The blue color of the lexan is due to the protective film that I have not yet removed.

I think you need help Don. This just keeps getting madder.
Reminds me of a layered cake. Now I’m hungry, Thanks. :slight_smile:

On to the body block. I glued two 3/4” thick pieces of bloodwood together back in post#25. Now it is time to use the piece.

Here it is with a center marked for drilling a 25mm borehole, through the entire length or height of the block.

After cutting the end I noticed a fault line that was not visible before. I’m setting that off towards the side away from the through bore so it will end up being cut off and not used anway. Should be no problem.

Having fun boring a hole…

Well damn! With about 1/8” to go there was a totally uncalled for snapping sound…

That was a surprise! I got the bottle of PVA glue out again. :frowning:

It was a clean break and easy enough to align, then clamp.

I let that cure for 6 or so hours and after a light sanding it looks pretty good.

Hopefully that is the end of the surprises.

I trimmed the block to more or less square.

Now to turn the square into an octagon…

I cut everything a little oversize and trim as needed. I find that easier than cutting too much initially and having problems to fix or re-do.

While waiting for the glue to dry I trimmed the lexan sheet and sanded it down to the level of the sides of the wood head.

Here it is with an 18650 cell for size comparison. The bloodwood body is about 1/2” longer than it will end up at before receiving a tailcap.

Next will be some sanding and sizing. That may have to wait as I’m taking a week off for some camping.

Nice chunk of wood :+1:

Those wood chips look so good, I’d wished they were edible.
Nice build MtnDon, I’m appreciating all pictured steps. :+1:

Impressive woodworking. It’s fascinating for me since I possess none of the skills or tools for such things.

Looks good and I’m excited to see the finished product :slight_smile:

Sorry Don. it was all my fault. I looked at your first picture and thought to myself you are good (which we know anyway). If I tried to drill a hole like that the wood would split for sure. Again nice recovery. :+1:

This build is taking shape nicely. A LOT of work has gone into it. Nice job :+1:

I took a break, took a littlex camping and hiking trip. I took the basic pieces I have so far made. I needed to step back and think a little. There was something that was starting to bother me. I do like contrasts between wood pieces. But, The head with its orangeiness was bothering me when close to the redish color of the main body tube. I decided the main color of the head should be the same as the main body. So I made a new head.

This new head is mainly bloodwood like the main body tube is. I started with a glued up lamination of 2 pieces of the 3/4” stock. Once the glue had set I added a cap of angelique (brownish) on one end and a cap of osage orange (more yellow than orange) on the other end. I was not sure which I would use. Or maybe I’d have another mishap and use the second as a spare. Or maybe just change my mind. :person_facepalming:

I drilled a 22mm diameter hole through this block. The first head was made with a 20mm hole.

The different size is bacause I also decided on an emitter change as well.

Yes. A mcpcb from Clemence at virence.com. The mcpcb is 21mm diameter and mounts four Nichia E21a emitters.

A new mcpcb calls for a new copper disc. The screw holes are spaced a little differently. There were already more holes than I needed and adding new ones was going to be difficult to keep track of. Tapping 2-56 holes for the mcpcb screws…

I cut the octagon the same way I cut the others; with the table saw.

So, the osage orange won my choice for the head piece to use. I sliced the block in half and here it is with he heatsink and mcpcb. This will use an optic with a 15 degree beam.

The head is to be bolted to the front copper disc with 2-56 machine screws. I’ve not used bloodwood before this project. I found it to jam up in the drill chip twists. It was necessary to retract the bit, stop the motor and chip out the wood from the clearance grooves. It did not want to clear without being prodded.

There, the hole is all the way through. When the copper plate is affixed to the heatsink the wood head will be screwed to it with 2-56 through screws.

Here’s my tubing cutter. I needed a ring of 3/4” copper tube for the bezel end of the head.

The OD of 3/4” copper tubing is slightly greater than 22mm. The 22mm bit was the closest, not too big, bit I have. I sanded, and sanded and sanede the outside of the copper tube to shrink it down to where it would fit into the front end of the bored hole.

Well, at long last I have all the parts needed for the head assembly. Here they are laid out. There still needs to be finishing sanding, etc and some assembly.

The head shell is at upper left. The copper ring next to it will be inserted into the front. Under it will be a rubber o-ring that then rests on the perimeter surface of the optic. The mcpcb is to be screwed onto the copper disc at the right end of the center row. That copper disc will be screwed nto one end of the black finned aluminum heatsink.

The driver mount (“pill”) in the center is to be screwed onto the other end of the heatsink. The bayonet tube will be inserted and affixed to the main body bloodwood octagon wood tube. The bloodwood octagon tube is at the lower edge of the image.

Here’s all the above pieces temporarily assembled.

To close off this installment we have a photo of the head with cear epoxy applied inside the front of the bore. Once that has set up hard the front will be sanded smooth and final fitting of the other head pieces will be done.

Thanks for looking and bearing with my changes of plans.

Wow that looks amazing. Love the mock-up photo.

Nice work!! :+1:

Cool design.

Orsm work Don. Its hard to get anything looking nicer than natures own work fettled by a craftsman. :heart_eyes:

After the epoxy set hard this is what I had…

After sanding the front with the benchtop beltsander with 180 grit I sanded the front face and the 8 octagon faces manually working my way through 220, 320, 400, 600 and 800 grit sandpapers. I sanded the copper ring insert with same grits, sandpaper wrapped on a finger. Then I sprayed the head with clear satin finish lacquer.

On to the mcpcb with Nichia E21A emitter, from virence.com. This mcpcb uses 4 wires to connect all four emitters to a power source/driver when all 4 emitters are used in parallel. Normally I would use some silicone insulated wires, probably 24 gauge for a light like this. However the wires have to take a course with lots of turns following channels in the heatsink. I was worried about nicking the insulation as well as the OD of the silicone wires. So I decided to use 26 gauge teflon insulated wires. They are much thinner and the insulation is very tough. It is also stiffer which is a compromise.

IF I had used the triple as I started out this wiring would have been sipler at the wires could then have a direct run down the center hole in the mcpcb and heatsink. OH well.

Green is red (+) and white is black (-).

Here is the mcpcb fitted to the copper disc and that fastened to the heatsink. Each of the four wires has its own route through the mcpcb and heatsink.

Twisted together the wires then will pass through the rear copper disc and into the copper driver mount/pill.

A moment of inattention brings disaster and a swear word or too!!! :person_facepalming: :cry:

It is a good thing I got two of these mcpcb’s when I ordered from clemence. :slight_smile: :sunglasses: I transferred the wires to the second mcpcb.

With the front end of the head assembled I connected the mcpcb to my benchtop power supply. Here it is at 2.2 or was it 2.3 volts and .20 amp.

Here it is with a little more voltage and amps…. 2.5 and .40 amps

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking.