My reviews on the Thorfire TK15 & VG10S after carrying each for 1 week.

Hello all as I have been kindly provided a TK15 and VG10S by Thorfire to review I will carry each for a week and then provide my findings. Although I find runtime charts & other measurements to be usefully in reviews I am not setup to provide those & thus will leave those up to other reviewers. Likewise on providing glamor shots (not relocating my DIY lightbox when I moved certainly didn’t help here.)

However what I believe I can offer BLF & Thorfire is the findings on these lights after some carrytime from one who has been knee deep in this hobby for over a decade. I will refrain from providing the majority of my review until first carrying each of these lights for a week. This is because I have found that additional findings generally surface at a later time.

First off → a bit of background on my current light use. I am now retired and generally do home renovations to pass most of my time. I do not need my lights to perform any critical function (IMO no budget lights currently produced are adequate to serve in such an environment. But w/o flaring up any debate I don’t think any SINGLE light source should be relied on 100% But then again → owning only ONE light I don’t think is a problem for anyone here.) :smiley: Now I don’t abuse any of my lights but I do use them moderately hard. For instance I don’t use any of my lights in place of a hammer but I don’t hesitate to grab & use any of lights while my hands are caked full of wet plaster. My lights will generally be lying under the deck or in the corner of an unfinished basement while I am working on something. That sorta thing.

So I’ll be carrying the VG10S first & here are my initial impressions.

- Machined very well as I’ve seen with most Thorfire’s I’ve owned. The milled slots on the tailcap do show tooling marks and the laser etching isn’t super crisp but for a light selling in the $20s a light with very little slop in it’s threads should be more than what a person should reasonable expect.

- Received with the threads bone dry – no biggie. That’s why we own lube. (Nyogel for me)

- Great tint. Seems like ~4,500k? This was a surprise for me as this didn’t seem to be advertised & I had expected it to be in the ~6,000k range life earlier Thorfire lights.

- The finned head offers great grip but outside of that the light feels rather smooth.

- The clicky feels rather mushy

- For my lower light needs (nighttime navigation in the halls & bedrooms w/o disturbing loved ones) on paper the lower & med range seem problematic.

- clip retention is VERY high. This should be good for someone who needs to insure they don’t lose the light outdoors. For my uses? Not so much. Maybe I’ll try to adjust it’s tension later on.

  • The tailstanding is a bit wobbly as the clicky protrudes a bit.

VG10S: After a week of carry: my findings
Grip: The smooth-ish/slippery body didn’t present a problem in actual use. One late evening I had to water the lawn in pitch black & just grabbed the VG10S to use. The faint milled cutouts offered my wet gloved hands ample traction. & of course any part of the hand that rested on the heavily finned head will offer good grip.

Switch issues: It might just be with my particular light but the clicky has too much travel & will “mis-click” if is not pressed reasonably straight down. It will most often do this when I use my thumb to reach over the tailcap thumb cutouts to activate the switch. 1 out of 5 times this motion will result in a mis-click where actual switch does not get pressed.

I have reduced this mis-click occurrence to about 1 in 10 times by shaving 3/32” off the rubber tailcap’s post. This also makes tail standing flawless now. The electrically connectivity of my tail switch assembly was also a question. Prior to the disassembly of the tailswitch the light would sometimes flicker & produce random flashes. The tailcap’s retaining ring was already tight from the factory but I eliminated the poor connection by cleaning the pcb contacts on the spring board(term?). I used deoxit but I’m sure rubbing alcohol would have been fine.

Form factor: Physically the shape of the light feels rather similar to my old Surefire 6Ps.
*
Target consumer for this light:* IMO the target audience for this light is the outdoor enthusiast in a position where their life does not depend on the light (because of possible switch issues.) But I found the light to be sturdy/tough, well heatsinked & a nice simple UI. A shortcut to high would have been nice but IMO not ultra necessary in this light.

Verdict: I like this light. Some perceived reliability issues on it keep me from recommending it as a duty light (to this day I still think something like a SF 6P w/ a malkoff drop is the way to go for that) but I think this light is a solid choice as a rural area EDC or just for the outdoor enthusiast.

TK15: initial impressions
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TK15: After a week of carry: my findings
*Grip: *As expected the body’s generous knurling gives it a great feel & grip. Not to rough.
Clip retention: While not as high as the clip on VG10S it still offers a firm hold whilst letting finger strength just able to open it.
Beam profile: as expected of a floody tube styled light the hotspot is on the somewhat floody side. Ideal for indoor use but not my top choice for outdoor use.
UI - IMO it is well suited for indoor edc use as one is able to alternate between moonlight & low w/o too much trouble.

A picture of the lights with some of the similar-ish lights within arms reach
(from left to right: my Astrolux S1 w/ an 18350 body, Ralights High CRI (16340 light,) black Convoy S2+, RaLights 85TR Twisty, Thorfire TK15, Thorfire VG10S & BLF X6)
& geez if I’m gonna start posting pics on forums again I’d better build another lightbox pronto! cmon! like seriously :confounded:

My Thorfire TK15 came in today so I decided to take a group photo. The light looks promising but I’ll mess with it next week b/c otherwise I don’t think I’d carry the VG10S for a full 7 days :stuck_out_tongue:

I measured my TK15 between 4600-4700K and my VG10S between 4500-4550K.

I believe they are both using the XP-L2 V6 3D even though they don’t state this explicitly.

That’s so informative. Thank you :+1: (& thanks for kinda telling me that my eyes aren’t going yet) :smiley:

I have now carried the VG10S for a week & have posted my final verdict.

TK15 is now in my pocket for it’s week of carry.
AZ

This is very late to this thread, but maybe not too late to remember your experience with the TK15. I just got one today, and I’ve found that the switch sometimes does things I don’t want it to, such as turning on the strobe when I just long-press it to turn it off, or going back to the beginning of the cycle (should be low) when I just clicked up to medium. Is this a typical problem with their switches, or might some cleaning help?