FLASKLITE - Nickel's Handbuild Copper Zoomie

You know how I love using a drill. How about chucking the part into the drill and turning it at low rpm with the triangle file? Might give a better feel for the pitch of the threads.

Added some pics of the P60 build.

RBD I built a thread pitch maintainer tool for female threads, and this worked pretty good while doing the soldering. You can see it in the added pic next to the P60 mod.

Took a bit of a break on the threads, and started in on the P60 mod necessary to fit the zoom function. I am giving up some flood by retaining part of the reflector so I can use the factory relief/kerf for an o-ring. Expanded the kerf with triangle file to fit a 7/8” o-ring. If too much flood is lost, or unsightly artifacts introduced, I will revisit my thinking on this. Also soldered a 14 ga. wire ring to the driver pill, to shoulder another o-ring. This all fits and functions nicely in a 3/4” coupling, and operates very smoothly with a little lube.

Bad news, I chipped my acrylic aspheric lens, trying to horse it into my failed lens cover attempt, (note to self, don’t do that). Will have to order another.

Good news, parts from FastTech and INT Outdoor showed up.

Whaaa… my fingers are getting sore.

What size lens is that? I may have something you can use

It’s 23mm FastTech sku 1187600. I have to back up a little, this a glass lens, and the lens chipped instead of cracked. If you have it, I could send a few bucks, otherwise I will put it in the next order.

I wish I could help you out with the monster copper fittings you need. I saw some good size copper tube up at the second hand store the other day while looking for a 3/4” drill bit. Someone had made a couple grease guns, using 1-1/2” or so copper for the body.

I have a 23mm plastic aspheric lens I can ship out to you. Pm me if interested

I have (or should have, I can check when I get home), a glass aspheric, if you want that.

I will have to verify when I get home, but I have several different sizes lying around.

I appreciate the assistance, but I’ve decided to order another glass one. If that doesn’t arrive in a decent amount of time, I could take you up on your offer though.

Edit: Didn’t see Old Lumens reply there in time. I’ll take you up on a glass one, if you have one. Thanks

If it comes near deadline and you don't got it yet and Justin does not have one let me know.got no problem sending it out

I like these aggressively adventurous mods. Easy is for pansies. This contest is a great idea and the mods should be difficult. I plan on using all the time available and hope it works by the end. :beer:

edit going by salvage yard tomorrow and will check for copper rod.

The tortoise is checking back in. I am amazed at the ingenuity of the handbuilds presented thus far, not to mention the fine workmanship. Well done!

The zoomie function of a flashlight has made for more thinking and less doing. I hope I have a grip on it. Lots of parts to make.

Added a few pics. One shows my rethinking of the pill. I’ve incorporated a 3/4” pipe “pill extender”. The extender serves as the inner tube of the zoomie, and will serve as the fixed part anchored to the flasklite body. As a byproduct, the extender should give some heatsinking too.

I shouldn’t worry about the pace too much, I haven’t even started other than to wire a test circuit. Looking forward to more pics’n’progress :slight_smile:

This is coming along nicely. You have a wonderful assortment of different tools there you are using.

Wow. Looks like a real challenge. Best of luck on the build. Looks like it will be a very interesting light.

More incremental steps and pics posted.

You could say that I have a new-found respect for ALL the modders out there. I hope I haven’t bit off more than I can chew on this project.

Got to hammering the copper skin, and I have to say that the depth of relief is not quite what I had hoped for. Maybe with oxidation, and highlighting with some steel wool will help out?

Made a switch tower on top of one of the tubes, because there is no real room to recess. Thought about between the tubes, but it did not feel right. Pics show a Judco switch fastened to the tube inside the 1/2” tower, and a cobbled together faceplate with a small Fastech boot. Need to get some small brass screws, on next trip to the hobby store.

That switch housing looks terrific.

Thanks MRsDNF. The process feels like solving a jigsaw puzzle, you keep flipping parts around till it fits.

Funny how when you read some things and a smile appears on your face. Do we blame OL for this.?

We could blame OL, but I think I’ll thank him for the explosion of creative ideas that have been unleashed in the contest.

It’s going to be close on the deadline……I think I can, I think I can. A few more pics added.

One thing I noticed in testing is that the color mixing isn’t so hot in the flood mode. I know it’s not going to happen on spot mode. That’s probably why you don’t see the Intl Outdoor driver trying to do it? Or, maybe there is no call for it?

I’m going to try some yellow, orange, cyan, purple etc. for some beam shots if possible. The cyan comes out perfect, as is. Ordered a fenix AD03 diffuser ($3 free shipping at the fenix store) and see if that helps with the other colors. Backup plan is using a WF501B lens with some d-c-fix film. This will be more of an experiment, as opposed to something permanently attached to the flashlight.