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

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?

I did use a small butane torch to preheat the assembly, but was afraid I was going to burn insulation on a wire inside the copper tube or inadvertently waver and toast a chip on the board. I seem to remember having done that before. :person_facepalming:

Anyhow that did work out okay in the end.

:+1:

I don’t blame you, I’m terrified to use torches like that. I’d probably have heated the smallest disassemble-able portion of it on my hotplate and then soldered. I haven’t done this yet, but it’s my plan for soldering to brass/copper pills etc.

Oh yeah!!!

Nice progress! :sunglasses:

The wood design looks really special, like an expensive custom flashlight. :heart_eyes:

This light will have its switch located in the tailend. It will be an Onten 1288 reverse clicky switch. Did you know that Omten makes over a dozen varieties of the 1288 switch. Some are even momentary contact types. Most are reverse clickies and vary in either color (white or black) or vary in the type of connecting contacts on the outside of the switch. There is one particular odel I wanted. I could not find any available in the US, so I have some coming from someplace in Cina.

While I wait for the switch order I still have some parts to make.

The switch will be mounted in its own module that will slip into the tail. The module will be fitted inside a short piece of 3/4” tubing. The first task with it is to silver silder a flat copper cap to the end of the 3/4” copper tube.

In the following image please ignore the portion with the holes drilled in the copper plate. That is an unused left over from another idea.

The copper pieces have been cleaned and a thin film of silver solder flux applied to the end of the tubing. I cut short little lengths of silver solder and placed them around the circumference of the tubing. When the copper is heated sufficiently with the butane torch the flux will have melted and spread. As soon at the melting point is reached the solder melts and capillary action draws the solder into the space between the tubing end and the plate.

Here it is with the soldering completed. FYI, the piece of aluminum angle has a section cut out that allows the work to be heated directly from underneath with the torch flame.

I only need a thin rim of the flat copper around the perimeter. First I used snips to rough out the shape.

Here it is with a short length of scrap tubing slipped over the tube. This piece is cut off of a 3/4” plumbing coupler sleeve. When joining lengths of copper pipe for plumbing these sleeves bridge the joint and are soldered in place. For this pipe size the coupler sleeves are about 1-5/8” long. Special purpose longer ones are available.

The flat cap piece was sanded or ground down using a belt sander. The piece of coupler acts as a stop when the piece is held on the top of the moving sander belt and rotated by hand as the sander runs. With a deft touch and some prectise one can produce a very good result.

Here’s the final result.

After the sanding down I cleaned the piece. Next I cut the end off using my tubing cutter. The end cap was marked in preparation of drilling a hole in the center of the plate.

The copper “plug” appears sort of like the brass end of a shoygun shell.

More coming……

The switch will be mounted inside the end cap that was just made. I used some scraps of FRP (fiberglass reinforced plastic) sheet. I epoxied a thin and a thick scrap together. The thin lighter colored was store bought and the thicker piece was a left over I hand laid many years ago for a model R/C “gas” powered race car project.

I center punched where to drill the hole I wanted. I also drilled the hole in the copper cap. I used a pin to hold the copper in position over the hole in the FRP, then used an awl to scribe a circle around the copper. THis marks the OD of the uncapped end of the copper plug. It will be a guide as I sand down the FRP. I want the circular piece of FRP to fit inside the cipper plug.

I used a pen to scribe a circular mark of the ID of the copper pipe using a poiece of scrap pipe. The image below shows my jig for sanding the OD smooth. A machine screw is used as a center pivot. The wood base is incrementally moved to touch the rotating sanding disc. The FRP is rotated by hand. It actually almost wants to spin on its own in a clockwise direction. Very liitle effort is required to rotate the FRP.

Here’s the sized FRP and the copper plug, side-by-side…

… and the copper plug inverted over the FRP…

The center hole was used as a starting point to file out the center to the shape of the 1288 Omten switch.

I used these switches I do have to test fit. The body is the same as the switches I plan to use, but the tabs are different.’

Switch test fitted inside the plug…

more comig….

A second piece of circular FRP is needed. This is from a thicker piece of the hand laid FRP. It may be sanded thinner before this is finished. I used the same jig, but with a smaller diameter pivot screw.

The center hole in this piece was hand tapped to 8-32 size.

A brass flat head 8-32 machine screw was threaded into the tapped hole with a brass finishing washer under the head.

The other end of the machine screw is fitted with a brass nut

Here’s the copper plug with the two FRP pieces that will slide inside the plug. In theory, when the switch to be used arrives this should almost assemble itself with a small amount of filing in a couple of spots to clear the switch tabs. In theory……

The FRP piece with the brass bolt fitted may be reduced in thickness. The machine screw will also be shortened as it does not need to be extended so far.

One of my desires with this section was to have it easy enough to assemble and disassemble. I could have potted it together with epoxy but I preferred not to do that.

The machine screw head is a circuit contact point and the nut end is another contact. The nut end will be contacting the negative end of the cell and the machine screw head will be contacting one of the switch tabs. Not yet drilled are two small diameter, probably 2-56 threaded, holes for the screws that will keep the pieces tightly fitted in a unit.

Drilled the holes for the plug assembly screws. Tapped the pair that needed to be tapped; 2-56 thread.

I taped the two FRP pieces together for drilling through…

A spare drill bit was used as a locator pin when drilling the second hole through the copper…

Test fit of the hole alignment…

…countersunk t\in the copper…

On the left is the tail end of the wood sleeve. The tailcap switch plug assembly is to the right. The short coupler sleeve in the center is now to be epoxied into the tail end of the wood sleeve. The idea is to slide the switch assembly into the tail end. The rim prevents it from sliding all the way in. A wood cap will be fitted to the end to finish off the light.

Epoxy is sort of a point of no return; epoxing a metal ring into the wood is an irrevocable step.

Epoxy was mixed and applied, the copper ring inserted….

Now we wait till the epoxy is set hard.

The copper ring is also to reinforce the wood. This bloodwood has proven itself to be a little more brittle than I expected it to be. It is very dense but is prone to cracking along the grain length when used in thin sections like this flashlight body. Why this is a concern will be more apparent in the next section of work. I hope my plans all work out okay.

It’s coming along and looking great; and all the great photos to show all the details makes this my favorite thread to watch.

i really like that black backer board you have covering your drill press table.

During this covid time i found a 60 year old drill press with a pristine table on craiglist. i couldn’t believe somebody didn’t accidently drill into it—and they were giving it away to clean out the garage…

It has 2 belts, one from the motor to an intermediate pulley set, then another from the pulley set to the spindle. Need to find a replacement belt for the motor, it’s really short.

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Wow, have you tried it out yet ? That is Sweet :smiley:

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I looked up your Bloodwood and it is sensitive to pressure along the grain as you mentioned. That makes your build even tougher to do. Looking very nice now :beer:

That’s the sort of mistake one can make when blinded by a oretty face. :person_facepalming:

I think it’ll work out though. :beer: Thanks.

Great find on a old tool! As long as it works that is all that matters. My drill press is approaching 40 years of age.

I use scraps of hardwoods for table protection. Presently I am using oak stairtreads cutoffs from a remodel we did. Stained black. I drill into them all the time as when drilling through wood it helps to have a disposable backer board to minimize/eliminate tear out when the bit cuts through. Maybe that is what you saw in the pictures. ??? Of course there is also my old bench vice that is probably 75 years old in some pictures too. THAT is beat up as it has been used to hold parts being welded as well as steel being heated and bent into some different shape.

Right you are, i see it now—i will edit my remarks. i use scrap pieces of wood as backer boards too, it helps to leave a clean hole when the drill breaks thru the part. You are just a step ahead in me with that fancy backer. i noticed the wood plug in the center hole and liked that idea too—saves dropping drill bits down onto the steel base.