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

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.

:+1: :beer: :heart_eyes:

Gee, it’s always something. :frowning: I soldered the driver to the led wires and nothing happened when I connected power to the driver. :open_mouth: The 20mm driver worked a month or so ago, but for some reason won’t light up any led/mcpcb I connect to it today. Different drivers make this mcpcb/led unit light up good. This is the only 20mm driver I have at present. I need some luck figuring this out or possibly need a new driver. Thankfully mtnelectronics has 175 in stock right now.

And then the belt on the bench sander flew apart, broke at the seam, when I applied the cleaning stick. I need to order some more as I found that was my last of that grit.

Maybe something is trying to tell me to get back to the small table I’m supposed to be making.

Oh i feel your pain. Invisible magic smoke , tool maintenance. The problem is when a build goes to plan just once, we expect it all the time :person_facepalming:

This is a great build thread, i look forward to each new development. It’s pure joy to see how you setup the tools and crafted the pieces to bring out the beauty of the wood.

Bugger. :frowning:

That was more or less my reaction, too.

I have no idea what went wrong. I ordered another. C’est la vie!

I have moved forward some… sorry, but the next image is out of focus. I guess that is what happens when juggling a lit butane torch, and the phone camera. The torch head and flame are just barely visible. The square in the background is sharp though. :person_facepalming:

Anyhow, it was time to solder the bayonet sleeve to the main battery carrier tube.

Once it cooled I cleaned it up.

Here’s the head assembly with the bayonet sleeve and body inner tube fitted into place.

I needed some sleeve/coupler sections and used my tubing cutter to do the cutting. Slow going because the short lengths didn’t provide much grip for turning in the cutter, but more accurate than me trying to hacksaw and maintain a straight end.

Parts….

This is the wood body tube with the copper bayonet assembly inserted. The inner copper and outer wood pieces need to be mated; screwed or bolted or glued. I will be fixing them together with a machine screw or two in a later step.

The bayonet slot can be seen….

The tail end. The copper tube still needs to be trimmed to length. I won’t know the exact length until the driver is secured in its holder.

Trial fitting of head and body parts… The black marker square denotes the position of the slot in the copper sleeve.

The new driver arrived. I flashed it with Crescendo and then tested it. It worked. Then it was soldered in place. That was easier said than done. The mass of copper dissipated the applied heat rather quickly. Eventually I was able to get the solder to flow between the copper tube mount and the ground ring on the driver.

After things cooled down I tested again and was able to confirm that all was good. I had not fried any parts. :slight_smile: The ramping up and down, etc all functioned. The image shows the head and metal body tube assembled. There is an 18650 cell inserted and I used a pair of tweezers to make/break the circuit to check the operation of the driver firmware. The blue masking tape is to protect the clear coated wood portion of the head during handling.

The next step is to finalize which one of the partially thought through tailcap and switch assemblies to use and build. I have had several ideas and as I ponder through a mental build, usually find difficulties that need to be worked through.

If you haven’t figured it out, because I don’t think I detailed it yet, this light is a traditional tailcap reverse clicky switch switch design.

It is fitting up nicely :+1:
I like your shop too :wink:

On the home stretch now MD. Would a small torch be better heating the copper tube to solder the driver in?