Maggie the Mag or Maggie May as I like to call her. Helping a well used Mag back to life. Photo Heavy - It's Done!

First post has been updated 7-10-12

Not likely from acid, anyway. If it was from leaking alkaline cells, then it was caused by a base, not an acid.

Once the corrosion is that advanced and has dried, there’s little reason to do anything other than wire brush it off. Baking soda won’t help. If caught early enough, leaks from alkaline cells may be neutralized with vinegar.

Great work OL. The tailcap inlay will look great. :)

Beautiful work, as usual! I can’t wait to see what else you have planned for that working girl.

Very neat project. Reminds me a restoration I did on an old, abused bench vise - nothing like bringing something back from the dead :wink:

Will

Thanks for the info,

That prompted me to go to Wikipedia and find this, which led me to this and while it would help an intelligent person, I didn't grasp a thing from it, but at least I went looking.

Baking soda might not have been effective, but it sure helped clean off the grunge without having to scrub like hell. Maybe it's because Potassium hydroxide tends to absorb the water and the water broke it up, not the Baking soda?

Anyhow, the Greased Lightning did a real good job of cleaning and the result was satisfactory to me.

We tried to use mineral spirits a few times, as dad thought that would be best to clean her major “acid reflux” deposits. I guess we should have used baking soda instead, but looking back, it wouldn’t have mattered. So much - too much - damage was done too fast. We tried with and without chemicals, but I knew things would get bad after that, especially when she leaked acid out the reflector and acidy residue kept fogging the lens. Poor girl.

Very interesting indeed !!!

You know, that’s the odd thing. I didn’t find any corrosion up in the top of the light or anywhere around the switch. It was all in the tail cap and in the last 3 inches of the tail end of the body.

The baking soda probably helped as a mild abrasive. Once the potassium hydroxide touched the aluminum tube of the flashlight, it would have reacted immediately and no longer due to the following reaction:

2Al(solid) + 6H2O + 2KOH —-> 2K[Al(OH)4] + 3H2 (gas)

Greased Lightning worked to remove the anodizing because it contains sodium hydroxide, another strong base. Many types of oven cleaners and drain cleaners would work also, as they generally contain sodium hydroxide or other highly basic chemical.

So what can be used to “contain” Potassium hydroxide? Will it eat thru epoxy? How about plastic? Most plastic containers are chemical resistant. I use them for stripping the ano and I haven’t seen any reaction with the greased lightning.

Wow. Talk about resurrecting the dead. Good luck with this. I know you do great work and I look forward to seeing what you end up with.

Looking good, Justin!

Updated with more photos on the progress.

I went ahead and made a Dummy battery for this light. I figure if someone uses Alkalines, four of them would give an initial 6v and that's not really a good thing.

d1

d2

Not great, but it will work if needed.

Have you made a decision about the emitter yet?

Yes,

I couldn't find all that much and didn't find what I wanted. Craig at IS had some T5 leds on 14mm stars and I was going to put one on a short pedestal, so the beam could be adjusted, by turning the head in and out. Unfortunately he's out of stock. I ended up getting a T5 on a 20mm star, so it will not be a focusing beam, but a pre-focused beam. Not what I wanted, but what I got. The driver is coming from E1320. 1.7A. I'm not going for mega bright, just a light more similar to a stock maglite. Well, it will be brighter, but you know what I mean?...

So no hotwire..^^

Actually 1.7A is great for runtime and brightness. If I had any patience, I'd mod my bigger Maglites, too. But I'll stick with the 2AA Minimags.

How much is a 4D Maglite in the US? I have one I dont really need..

20 dollars.