MtnDon's hand-made entry; 9th BLF OL challenge

Looking great Don!

That diagonal heatsink looks cool :sunglasses: I’m already liking this build better than last year’s entry :+1:

When I saw the heatsink on aliexpress I just had to buy and use it in a project!

Looking good. Can’t wait to see more

More…. before I get to making the tailplug assembly I need to do some work on the main inside wood blocks that will carry the 16650 cell and connect the frint end to the tail.

The two blocks will not remain snugged up against each other. Howerver, I need to cut a groove in the bottom of each block and this will be more easily done with them temporarily paired together. I used the top switch plate and a length of 17mm tube to hold them aligned.

I made several passes over the router bit, with the bit raised a little each pass. I’m not about to try and photogrph the work while I am doing it, so the next images illustrate what I did.

Here’s a close up of the groove, or slot, I cut

I did some light sanding to size the pieces, clamped together, on the belt sander

The front block needs a notch cutout to clear the driver mount

A hand saw was used…

… and a chisel…

I test fitted the driver, heatsink and front block. The driver spring can be just barely seen in the shadow with the + end of the cell visible against the driver spring.

Some of the available copper tubing is ever so slightly over size. With the sides of the maple block so thin in places I decided it was best to sand the wood block a little to reduce the tight fit… (this is the tail end of the rear block where the tailplug assembly will be fitted.)

I also sanded down the OD of the 19mm copper tube.

Here is the view of the bottom of the grooved blocks. Beside that is a hard maple spline I cut from the larger stock I used for all these wood parts.

A nice snug, but not too tight fit…

The spline was trimmed. The entire bottom will be trimmed with the spline in place to make a smooth bottom.

…more coming…

PS: The maple is quite this=n in the area right beside the bored hole. As a result there was some tearing of the wood when I cut the notch. I filed and sanded those edges a little to remove the rough edges. These wood parts will all be hidden inside the laminated wood body shell.

I then switched from wood work to metal work; the tail plug assembly.

A piece of scrap sheet copper was silver soldered to one end of a 17mm OD x 1mm wall copper tube. This will be used for making the “plug”.

After trimming the sheet copper off with snips and filing a hole was drilled and tapped in the tube side. A brass 8-32 machine screw was threaded into the tapped hole and then silver soldered in place. This screw will be cut off and used for making a lug that will be a part of the bayonet mechanism of the plug.

A piece of 19mm x 1mm copper tube will be used to make the outer sleeve of the bayonet tailplug assembly. I started the slot with two saw cuts…

Then some small files were used to enlage and shape the slot…

More saw cuts and more file work to bring the slot at a 90 degree angle to the first slot…

When the pieces are all assembled with a cell in place the spring pressure will push the plug back. The notch will lock the plug in place, preventing accidental turning.

A short length of the 19mm tube with the filed slot was cut off. The initial sanding was done with 150 and 220 grit sandpaper. This piece was next polished with finer grits; 320 and 600.

Here it is with the still long and uncut plug piece fitted.

…more fine sanding on the plug piece and the two parts separated…

… and coupled…

The plug cut to length…

The plug and the bayonet sleeve…. The lug was filed down to the same level at the OD of the 19mm sleeve…

I reduced the OD of a dowel to fit inside the tailplug, by sanding of course.

The dowel will be cut shorter and fitted with a finger grip later.

The front portion of the rear block was cut off at the point where the bore hole changed from 17mm to 19mm. I only require the 19mm piece to hold the tail plug assembly. The front and rear blocks will later be glued to the bottom spline.

Here is the above trial fitting with the tailplug removed.

Here’s a close up shot of the tail end with the block moved out of place…

I soldered a spring to the tail plug.

That is all for now. Thanks for looking. More to come another day.

Wowsers, Don! Coming along nicely.

After seeing all of your hard work, I feel kinda ashamed on my build. :frowning:

This build is really special, so much handwork.
I admire your skills, you should open a school of flashlights one day…



Great progress, happy to see you are no longer halted
That is a very cunning trick, I wonder if placing a o-ring on the inner part can make it waterproof (obviously not for a wooden light)

Amazing, Don :wink: :open_mouth:

More….

I previously test mounted the switch. The test proved the concept was good but I did not like the feel of it. On careful inspection I found the problem to be that the switch boot did not protrude enough above the surface of the heat sink top. I found a boot that was higher. It also required a larger hole as it was greater in diameter.

I drilled out the original hole from 21/64” to 25/64”, 1/64” at a time. Past experience with re-boring holes in copper has been that jumping too big an amount greatly increases the chances of the drill bit grabbing or hogging and causing problems. Slow and easy was successful.

The increased height of the boot necessitated coming up with a thicker spacer (nubbin?) inside the boot to transfer the press motion to the momentary switch button. I cut up a different boot and sliced off a piece of it to be a spacer. The spacer is the black blob in the next picture.

I also had to drill the recess in the maple strip a millimeter or so deeper. The boot then fits snugly into the recess and retains the switc during assembly.

The pieces fit together…

I trial fitted the driver mount, or pill…

The pill was removed and the driver fitted. I soldered two short pieces of copper wire to the side of the pill. The driver was inserted and the wires bent over as tabs. The wire tabs were then soldered to the negative ring on the driver. That holds the driver in place as well as completing that part of the circuit. If I need to remove the driver at some point I find it easier to remove the wire tabs than to de-solder a blob as is used on the Convoy S2 driver and pill.

I did another trial assembly. I believe in testing fit and function frequently. I find that makes for simpler troubleshooting than forging ahead with several steps before testing. The switch operation was checked using a multimeter.

I used a temporary jumper and simply touched the switch leads from the driver together instead of wiring the switch. The test LED, an old XM-l lit and the driver ramped up and down.

That is all for now. Next I’ll mount the quad mcpcb with the Optisolis led’s to the front copper strip and complete the wiring of the components. I also need to glue the two cell carrier blocks to the bottome maple spline. In the photo the pieces are just sitting there, pushed together.

You may note that I cut a couple of slots lengthwise in the maple for the wires.

After that the bottom of the inside unit will be trimmed and I will begin on the body shell.

Once again, thanks for taking time to look at what I am doing.

I suppose an o-ring could be fitted somehow to seal the interface of the inner plug to the outer sleeve. Without using a lathe it would may be difficult to source tubing to make a ‘groove’ to retain the o-ring. Maybe not insurmountable but it would require more thought.

It looks more and more like a flashlight. The combination of copper and wood is nice. :heart_eyes:

It was time to tidy up the tail plug and complete a detail. The wood plug fits snugly inside the copper plug but needs a screw to hold it securely.

A 5/64” hole was drilled through the side of the copper plug and into the wood dowel.

A flat head #4 wood screw will be used to secure the two pieces together. A countersink bit was used to cut a taper for the screw head…

The screw was fitted and filed and sanded to match the contour of the copper plug.

The fit of the plug inside the copper sleeve was checked. The copper sleeve was then inserted and glued into the rear wood support block. Sorry, but I missed taking a photo of that step, but it is not all that much to look at anyhow… just a copper tube inside a block of wood.

Before gluing the copper to the wood I also missed taking a photo of when I tinned one end of the copper sleeve for future soldering of a wire. Pre-tinning before assembly in the wood made it possible to use a torch for rapidly heating to a high enough temperature to make the solder melt into the copper without burning the wood. That was done late last night and I simply got too interested in working and neglected the photography.

That is all for now with the tail plug. Later on, when the body shell is built there will be some additional woodwork to be done to the protruding dowel rod…

Both the front wood block and the smaller rear wood block were glued to the bottom spline this morning after the spacing was set to accommodate fitting the 16650 cell. The use of two springs leaves enough space for using either a button top or a flat top cell. I am using a 2000 mAh 16650 vapcell.

I used CA glue and accelerator so I could jump to the next step quickly. I cut 5/16” or so off the bottom of the spline with attached two wood blocks. The carrier assembly did not need to be so tall. Then I soldered in the black negatove wire from the front copper driver mount to the rear tailplug sleeve. The wire fits in the lower side groove.

I also shortened and soldered the wire that connect the switch to the driver. I found that I did not have a small enough diamter heat shrink tube for those thin wires. Since the wires are set inside a wood block groove and not be in close proximity to conductive metal I did not let that stop progress. I did apply clear packaging tape to hold the wires in place during handling and assembly.

Then the wires to the MCPCB were soldered. he MCPCB is fixed to the copper with double sided heat conductive tape.

Here is what this looks like now, from the left and right sides.

More in a few minutes…

A short video to illustrate that the “bones” of this years BLF O-L Challenge works. An exciting milestone!! I have to admit I held my breath the first time I clicked the switch.

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YuvalS, it does seem this light may be water-resistant.
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:person_facepalming:

:slight_smile:

That is pretty much the end of the first stage.

Now onto the second stage, the wood body shell.

Looking good!

I made a small adjustment or change to the inner bones assembly. I decided it would be more sturdy, a better fit, to have a screw to secure the upper wood strip to the rear cell tailplug assembly. A picture or two should explain more clearly.

I drilled a hole through the upper wood strip ( the thin strip attached to the copper heatsink unit) and into the rear tail plug block with the entire block set assembled as previously pictured. Then I disassembled the block section from the upper piece and drilled out the hole to accept a threaded aluminum spacer. That was epoxied in place. The hole in the upper wood strip was countersunk. When the epoxy had set the unit was screwed back together. The disassembly did require the negative wire to be de-soldered from the tail plug sleeve. That will be redone.

The woods for the body have been selected.

The two dark striped pieces are bocote, a hardwood from Mexico The center strip is padauk, from Africa. The two thin strips are osage orange, probably from Argentina, IIRC. None are endangered species.

They were glued up and will be left in the vice overnight. The other woods in the image are clamping blocks or the wood vice itself. Those pieces are a full inch thick. Slices will be cut off after the glue cures for a full 24 hours.

Then I’ll be back with more pictures of progress. At least that is my hope.

All three of those make my favorite-wood list…this light is going to be a real looker! Bocote finishes and polishes up so nicely…same for osage. Padauk is kind of a pain with the pores and a liquid finish like poly but it’s so beautiful. I used to make a nice sort of natural stain with my padauk dust and fine shavings. Soak them in denatured alcohol or turpentine (the more wood the better) and it can give a pretty rich color almost the same shade of the fresh cut wood, or you can use more solvent to turn it pinkish. Does ok with light exposure but will fade after time.

Thanks Correllux. I have been using a water based clear coat from Varathane as a sealer and first two or three coats on these woods for a few years. It is the exterior version which has UV inhibitors included. Most clear coats have no UV resistance. After 3 to 4 thin coats I wet sand with 400, maybe up to 800 and then use a clear satin lacquer I like. The UV protection does a decent job of slowing color darkening a lot.