I don’t have any tiny taps and I was looking for some way to hold the LEDS on the pill . I found these old copper nails in an antique carpenters chest I inherited.
I cut them down to fit the holes of the MCPCB
Then I marked and drilled the pill . I should have taken the time to use the drill press instead of drilling by hand as just slightly off center of the pill . Not much , but I can see it .
Here’s my first real screw up . Made the lens cap first . Was pretty much happy with it . Then I thought I would put threads on the head end of the body . That was going ok until I realized I was cutting the threads to the same diameter as the pill . I get a number in my head and just bull right along with it .
So I’m going to blame it on old timers disease . My default excuse for when I don’t want to admit I’m old and don’t need to write numbers down , cause I’ll remember that !
Didn’t take me long to arrive at “ oh crap , that doesn’t work “ . My 1 inch stock does not accommodate the thread diameter I need without making the body walls paper thin . So I have ordered some thicker stock that should arrive later this week .
Not to totally have wasted your time , here’s a pic of a trunk full of carpenters tools that were my great uncles which date from the mid to late 1800’s.
As I was reading some of the build threads , I saw a comment about thinking out of the box . I realized I have a lathe and don’t have to cut standard threads . I can make my own ! Sat down , did some math , and bingo ! Back in business.
Cut the internal lens cap threads…
Cut the body threads and thought I was good to go . I then discovered my pill wouldn’t fit . It 4 thousands over. So back to the collet chuck. This thing is only 3/4 long , so even with a collet chuck, it’s hard to set up.
The nice thing is , after turning the part around to finish , it concentric.
So it all fit together like I was hoping and is starting to look like a flashlight. Now on to the other end .
In case anyone may be interested, here’s a pic of the cutting tools I had to make for internal threads and to cut the small shelves .
I’m having a hard time configuring this driver , forgot how hard it is to “quickly tap 8 times “ Right now I only have 4 modes , but that’s 3 more than I started with .
I’ll try some beam shots , but I don’t think my I-pad is gonna do much with that .
yeah, I’ve begun mentioning how great it would be to have a lathe (and perhaps a small CNC) to my wife so that in maybe 20 or 30 years it might actually happen
I have wanted a lathe for years . I bought that as my Christmas present last year with the intention of making flashlights. This is my first one . Internal threading to a blind shoulder was making me apprehensive.
This competition to honor Old Lumens , was the kick in the butt I needed to just go for it . I had fun , and I learnt a lot . I would like to say thanks to this forum , and all the great mates that hang out here .
Randy