mad skills being showcased here. Lemme go put on some :nerd_face: & take some notes…
I’m keeping it pretty close to stock in shape but wood instead of knurling and maybe a different clip.
Tbh I’m not very skilled at brazing. If I were I wouldn’t improve as rapidly. I mostly braze with wire and paste flux using a MAPP torch but some small items can be done with paste alloy and a mini butane torch. It just depends on how much heat it takes to get up to brazing temp which for copper is glowing hot. There are plenty of vids by much more skilled people many of whom you’ll find modeling trains and such. The biggest difference is that the flux has to be completely removed unlike some soldering fluxes. A hot water quench breaks off much of it but the rest has to be removed mechanically or chemically. I use Fuze Clean FS in a small container. It’s reusable for awhile but apparently ultrasonic cleaners allow a lower concentration of the stuff. The units cost $30-$80 and a years supply(for me) of FS is only $15 so I’m not yet sold on the idea.
Thanks for all the comments guys. Who says modding and budget are going away?
Looks like a Sipik to me. 
Looks ORSM RBD. Love your work. :+1:
Nice! Very well done! It still looks like a sk68 alright 
Nicely done, entertaining read and project.
I especially liked the 16650 conversion!
Cheers,
Splott-Light
Thanks SL, both the brass sheet and brass tubing are K&S precision metals products sold online and in hardware and hobby stores. The brazing isn’t necessary, solder would do for any of this I just think of solder as a temporary connection and brazing as a permanent one.
Dude, that is pretty awesome! Take an ugly POS and make it a good light, I tried one and gave up…
A true textbook contradiction to the “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear” adage.
Kinda passed this thread because I saw the pill fitted with coper in the “mod today” thread. Geez, even as I looked at the pics scrolling down one by one, my thoughts and anticipation of the next pic were never close. Direction it went was off by a mile from what I expected next.
Very nice work.
Great work, thanks for sharing!
That is amazing work…especially with the makeshift lathe. So much work into a $4 host, but end result looks awesome.
A yugo with a hemi? Still a yugo. But with such a low bar to start from I wanted to see how much better it could be done. Even better would be an improved fit on the pill. I will add a foil wrap 
But it’s not the same as good machining. There are 18650 zoomies and 10440 aspherics but the Sipik occupies a sparse nitch.
Can’t wait to see it over a beer Buddy!
I’m around for the holidays.
Bump for some updates
Outstanding work sir. I like what you’ve done to this humble 68.
You and Steve should compare notes, I don’t make sense to him either.
Love it.... I am so going to use that copper slug idea. Me and a friend at work were just talking about a way of doing what you did with that. I can't think of a more simple way of doing it.
So far I have only switched out the emitter in my project sk68, put in a CREE XP-E2 U5 on Noctigon 16mm, changed the wiring of course. Actually gonna change them again as soon as the wire arrives.
I attempted an 8*7135 driver from Mountain but when I tried to get it seated I popped off about 3 of the 7135's. They were very, very close to the edge of the board. So I put the old board back in and set it up constant current. So for not I have to keep protected cells in it.
I have some Protected Sanyo UR14500P 840mAh cells that should be here tomorrow. I will take a current reading and see if that boosted it a bit more.
Even as it sits right now it will blister a stock 68. I actually carry it at work a good bit. It is just really easy to keep with me, and if I have to climb into a machine it does not get in the way. Always more than enough light if I need it.
But I bow to the master. But I am so using the slug... Damn fine thinking and work.
WTF :X ! have you done to a cheap SK68 man?! :!!!:
Amazing work, keep on going! :THUMBS-UP: