Thin walls = lighter weight though I can’t see this being a light weight.
I did a bit of set up last night
I don’t have the right size collet for a 1.5mm drill bit so I wrapped it in alfoil. Hopefully it’ll work.
Also made a jig for measuring 11° at a glance. It’s technically 11.25° between each hole. 32 holes in each circumference, 96 holes all up. That’ll keep me off the streets for a while.
A critical part of the plan - don’t drill too deep. I did a quick scale drawing.
Aside from modifying 1-2 hosts before, this is the first time I’ve worked brass. Seems really easy to work with but I’m hoping when I lathe over all these holes I don’t get any chipping / spalling.
I started on the drilling this arvo. It didn’t go as well as I hoped. The drill bit slipped in the collet so I had to re-wrap it in more alfoil. After doing that I was still on the first couple of holes when it was apparent something was wrong (loose). I finally discovered I hadn’t tightened the nuts on the compound angle yesterday so it was slowly twisting around with pressure on it This caused the drill bit to rub against the part.
Going by the look of the first round of holes I figured I had lots of space so I decided to use a 2mm drill bit for the next round. The 3D model I drew up only had 2mm on the outer circumference of holes. I was tentative at first trying to make sure I had the right positioning. Then on the 3rd full depth hole I made a mistake on the dividing wheel and drilled it out of alignment. I don’t know how many holes I drill before I realised it was it was out
Picture of the side where I got it right
It was pretty tedious work. One more round of drilling to go…
No heart attacks. Just take it as a learning experience
One rather perforated head
I found one misaligned hole that breached the wall of another. I don’t know how many are like this. Hopefully it won’t affect it too much when I cut the taper on the head.
Pocket for driver and threaded for retaining ring
I’ve taken it out of the chuck now. Will work on some other parts before coming back to the head.
Cut new threads at one end of the battery tube. You can see the old thread deeper in the tube.
Cut thread on the head for the bezel. You can see in this pic some kind of dent / mark on the inside. I have no idea how that happened
Made a bezel but didn’t cut off so I could use it as a mount for working the head
Next was the all important cut that exposed all the holes. I started tentative and the more it revealed the more I liked it. It produced some burrs which I kind of expected but didn’t know how much I would get with brass.
To clean up the burrs I tried a file but it wasn’t as effective as a drill bit and a knife. Yes. it was tedious…… very , very , ….tedious. By the hundredth hole I was starting to get good at it
Cut thread on the back end of the head and a test fit to the tube
I’m liken the look of it but I can tell it’s going to be a heavy sucker
I’m really feeling this light. I too have modded my old mechanical vapes into flashlights, and have never came up with a good solution for the tail switch. Eager to see how you handle this. Keep up the good work!
I have a little more to show but it’s not overly interesting at the moment. I’ve gotten past racking my brain on how to make this work and have started making it. I’ve come to the conclusion that I do not need the battery to be recessed in the tube so I’ve manipulated the head to screw a little further into the tube. I sometimes cut the driver and tail springs so they are only half as long but I won’t be doing that this time.
These two pics are the previous intended battery position and the new position (without depressing the driver spring)
I really wanted to use this button that I had leftover from another vape conversion. I did a little prototyping just to see exactly how much clearance I had to work with. It turned out to be too tight to have the contents inserted from the battery tube end of the tail cap so I’ve had to accept inserting everything from the back and having a retaining ring visible from the outside.
Prep’d the tube ready for the tail
Got the big lump of brass in the chuck again
That’s as far as I’ve gotten but at least I’ve gotten past my mental block I’ve got a plan so can hopefully soldier on from here.