How do you store your flashlights?

I built this cabinet to showcase my BLF GT when the very first batch was released.

The box joint style construction is my friend’s design using his CNC machine. I made the stickers on a color printer and the decals on a vinyl cutter.

I wanted it to look like a one-off purpose built cabinet that had been mounted in a busy factory for several years, so I beat it up and weathered it.

I built a more traditional style cabinet for some of the small and medium-sized lights in my collection.

Click the photos to embiggen.

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Wow, you really love that light don’t you :cowboy_hat_face:
What are you using to light up the inside and how did you weather it and get those faded decals?

If I laid my whole collection on a table, I’m pretty sure the GT is the first flashlight anyone would notice. I figured it deserved a showcase. :smiley:

The cabinet was painted with yellow and black enamel spray paint, then tossed around and hit with a variety of objects. I weathered it with a few different colors of very dilute acrylic paint to highlight the defects.

The decals are printed on self-adhesive paper using a color laser printer. I weathered them with coffee and abrasion.

For these photos, I turned the GT on a low mode and hid a small AAA light behind the handle. I want to add some lighting but haven’t yet decided how.

I got a lot of inspiration for weathering from Adam Savage and the storage case he made for his microscope:

Wow, that is very impressive and i admire your dedication to this project! :slight_smile:

Goshdogit, that’s outstanding work!

Coloring reminds me of the band corrosion of conformity.

Thorough!

Mostly I store flashlights where I might need them: one or two beside each entry door to my place, a couple on the nightstand, one near the bathroom (in case power fails at a critical time!), and a few (including headlamp) in the car. I also keep one EDC in my pocket and another in my daypack. Besides that, I have a few shelf queens, batteries, and so on stored in dedicated kitchen cabinet. I am not really a collector. I own fewer than twenty lights in all, so I wouldn't get much use out of a display cabinet.

So, I think we are in the same boat. Many flashlights, and the need to display them. Throwing them in a box is ok, but you want to be able to see them. So how do you store 100, 200, 300 flashlights? This is the main question.

Digital picture frame? :person_facepalming: :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for the kind words, guys! Adam has lots of great builds and I have learned lots of cool tips just from watching him work.

I built the cabinet out of scrap and things I had lying around. I am certainly fortunate to have a friend with a big CNC machine, and he just happened to be experimenting with some joinery techniques by cutting into the face of the material. This one resembles a box joint, but leaves some voids where the fingers meet.

I think it looks cool, and it even allows for ventilation. :smiley:

I agree, I like them on display. I have a few ideas:

How about the IKEA BILLY bookcase with the optional glass doors? They’re only particleboard though. You might find one cheap on craigslist.

IKEA has several other ‘display cabinet’ options.

A sturdier, classier option is a ‘barrister bookcase.’ They’re still made, but the good ones are antiques. Most of them have doors that lift and slide on top of the shelf. Some have dual sliding doors that pass each other, like closet doors. Most of them are very easy to move because they’re made of independent units simply stacked together. Check craigslist or antique stores and malls.

Another idea is a vintage ‘curio cabinet’ or ‘China hutch.’ Older ones are plentiful since folks don’t show off their knick-knacks and dishes that way anymore. I find most of them a bit gaudy, but I’ve seen some simple ones too. :smiley: Check craigslist and thrift stores.

Upper kitchen cabinets with glass doors might be a good option. You could hang them on the wall or even stack a couple and make a base for them.

Goshdogit, I like your IKEA book cabinet idea for storing/showing your (selected!) collection of flashlights. Do install some lights for illumination, so that friends and visitors can admire them if and when they visit in the evening.

This is my plan, too. But I don’t have that many interesting flashlights to show just yet.

The IKEA is nice. Capacity vs price seems to scale well vs the wall unit I ordered. If I had enough to fill it that would have been better.

Ikea detolf might be a good suggestion?

Most of mine (which are EDCs) are kept on my workbench located in the basement, along with the battery chargers. Very convenient for me to pick the one I want to use. Other bigger ones are also in the workroom on a shelf, or around the house for others to use.

I’ve also kept all my boxes and have them on a shelf in the workroom. Not sure why I have them, except I guess they would come in handy if and when we move.

I’ve thought about putting up a wall shelf in the workroom to get them off the workbench since I worried about them when my son was hammering stuff. I was concerned about the vibrations possibly causing an issue with the flashlights. But it’s been a while since he last used my workbench.

Assembled this cabinet. Amazon.com

Looks nice. Doors rub just a bit at the top, I’ll tweak that eventually. Now I’ll be looking for lighting.

The holes for placing the shelves mean you can’t put the lowest shelf high enough for longer 2S lights, so you could go w/ only 2 shelves or add some more holes for the shelf holders. I’ll probably just put my larger lights on top.

They’re everywhere, as if they were tribbles :weary: .

One day I’ll get some (lotsa) cardboxes to put 99% of my lights into them to put them on sale. You cannot imagine how I hate that I became a collector.

Nice shelf for less than US$100. Do share with us some photos once you have installed some lighting and set up your collection of flashlights.

I will be looking for a similar wood cabinet with glass windows, perhaps from some second-hand shops.

A few years back I had loads of drivers, emitters and half modded hosts. I threw it all in a box and donated it.

This time around the hope is to not tear into as many things and keep stuff a bit more organized.

My solution. One cabinet out of several in the workshop. The see-thru compartment boxes are great for small parts though I need tweezers to remove things. The hard part is to put newly aquired pieces into an appropriate contaier. It is very tempting to just put on an vacant spot and file it in the “right spot” later.

Very nice, MtnDon! If only I’d done that before I had to move a couple times I’d probably still have all the stuff I donated.