"D" Mag Mandrel... Image heavy

Encouragement, you’ll get there…

What if you machined the reflector as an integral part of the head? The pill could deliver the emitter into the reflector from behind, with the battery tube threading in right behind it. Just because it’s Externally the same, doesn’t mean it has to be internally the same as well. Then the head/reflector would be one solid piece, adding to the heat sinking effect. For this reason alone, it should be made from at least 6061 if not 7075.

I have found a way to polish the aluminum such that it is a mirror, with virtually no markation. Now wouldn’t THAT be cool

Speaking of trying to catch up, there is always something else pops up to interrupt. There is a certain member out there has given up on me. :_(

Here’s a better example, with different lights for size. And more what if’s…What if? You made it out of solid copper? :slight_smile:

Who gave up on ya Steve? :expressionless:

I cant embarrass myself needless to say progress has been made today.

I’m still waiting on this mandrel to turn up. I hooked the fax back up especially and nothing has come through yet. Glad to know I’m not the only unreliable thing around here. |(

i still think an m3 head with a 14500 body would be mint.....

just need to match the dimensions on the head and tail of the body. last i checked, it would be like $60 for the battery tube to match solar force dimensions

Churn em out and we’ll buy em! :slight_smile:

The Scaled down HD2010 could even be made smaller for a 10440 as far as I’m concerned, now wouldn’t that be neat. :slight_smile:

So there ya go guys, a challenge. 3 of ya yappin and no lathework showing up! Dan, Nick, Steve, spin em up and lets see what ya got! :slight_smile:

Wow... that's one ugly red light!! At least it hasn't melted!

Dan.

Whew! I'm sending you my lathe! I wouldn't want to do the reflector as part of the head.... but I do make a lot of lights that the pill pocket, head and short portion of the body are one piece. Then, the tube screws onto that. This can make it nice for changing battery sizes on the same light. That's all probably clear as mud after I re-read it.... an image is in order, I'll scrounge one up. Making that reflector part of the head means of course that you have to shape it into that head... working in a hole!! It can sure be done but would... for me anyway, take awhile.... Steve did something like this I think.

I make almost all the aluminum parts in 7075. I use 6061 sometimes for internal parts like lock rings & etc... but the 7075 T61 or T65 seems to hold a finish better after blasting. It certainly holds a high polish better and for much longer than the 6061.

Dan.

I tried faxing you my mandrel.... now I have this big bubble in the fax machine cord! I knew I should have used OIL.... OIL needs to be on everything!! .... Make that reflector in a head for Dale!! That will get your mind off my mandrel! Ha!

Dan.

Pack your stuff and come on up!! Odd you came up with all this. A few months... a year...??? or so ago, I was in a supply store and a guy was fumbling in his pocket and while doing so he took out a tiny little cheap made plastic flashlight and set it on the counter. Naturally, I HAD to pick it up....just had to! What caught my eye was the proportions and scale of the light. It is a little single AA but looks like it is a scaled down huge light. I have it on my other desk... he gave it to me. Ugly colored little rascal but great lines and scaling. Somewhere in China all this already exists most likely... But, in a high end, quality light.... these might be a good piece of merchandise. TIME.... I need more TIME.... going to the shop! Dan.

Can I blame it on my Aunt? When I was a kid my mom’s sister was always coming up with miniscule precision made items. At around 8 or 9 she bought me a working model of the Wankel engine, the plastic for the block and heads was all cast in clear and we put it together…well, together. It had small light bulbs for the spark plugs and you could see the firing process as the triangular piston worked it’s way around and the plugs fired under the compression stroke. My Mom’s Grandparents migrated here from Germany, and my Aunt is really into the precision German made parts. I guess I inherited that from her as I too absolutely love something delicately small but made with precision. Completely separate from that, at around the same age an older cousin gave me a copy of the Old Testament, in a version about 1” long on the long side!! Full copy of the Bible, just tiny. Thick, as you might could imagine, but readable…helped to have a magnifying glass but wasn’t necessary for very young eyes.

I absolutely adore my Texas Poker Ti Neck-light from Photon Fanatic! I designed it to look like a Leupold scope, Fred fine tuned the design and created a Masterpiece. 5 separate pieces with 8 different areas of .5mm threading, it’s just superbly done. I had originially wanted a miniature of a MagLite, but he wouldn’t copy the design.

I spent many an hour looking over a friends shoulder while he machined parts on his monster lathe at the gun shop he owned and operated. His lathe was easily capable of making rifle barrels, had a very long range of throw, must’ve been some 7’ of travel on that beast, if I recall correctly it was a 14” jaw/chuck. His end mill was also humongous, standing almost 8’ tall with a full reciprocating head for just about any conceivable angle, although it was somewhat of a bear to make those adjustments as the head was so large. These 2 machines were so massive, he poured the slab for his shop and built all but one wall, then used a fork lift to put the machinery in place, built the wall in and put the roof on the shop after they big machines were set. The mill was over 10,000 lbs and it wasn’t easy for him to find a forklift for rent that would lift it!

I was into competition hand gun shooting back then, and he ported my Ruger SP-101 snub-nosed .357 Magnum to help control recoil. That mill was outstanding! He later ported the barrel of my Glock 23 in .40 S&W, cutting a window out of the top of the slide to coincide with the milled portals in the barrel. Very fast repeat shots in competition! Loved it! A few months afterwards, Glock themselves was doing the exact same thing with their competition models!! I had also bought a 5/8” diameter rat tailed file for the single purpose of cutting finger grooves into the front of the Glock’s grip, they later incorporated those into the design as well, completely without any communications….I/we had no idea what Glock was planning, they of course had no idea I’d done the same to mine. Sometimes, a good idea is just a good idea. :slight_smile:

Since then, I’ve always been somewhat jealous of the folks with the equipment to manufacture just about anything their imagination could come up with. I didn’t know, back in the early 90’s, that the time spent in that gun shop would forever change how I looked at making parts.

A well made miniature HD2010 would be simply awesome, and don’t I wish I could stand over your shoulder and watch you make it… it would have to be polished, of course! :stuck_out_tongue:

An attempt, got sidetracked and missed…

This was done with the piece being turned by my cordless drill, cut by my 21 year old Sears rotary tool. On the glass top of the garden table on the back porch. :slight_smile:

Got so caught up in keeping the cutting tool concentric to the emitter opening, I cut the wrong pitch on the reflector walls. Made a bowl of it, which of course would work fine for an incan but not so much for an LED. Fun, holding the drill down with the left elbow, left hand helping stabilize the rotary tool, glasses off face right in front of the spinning parts (zip tie holding the drills trigger for a nice slow rotation) and my 6 year old would suddenly appear, loud, “Hey Dad! Can I have something to eat?” The kid is always starving. lol minutes after leaving the table, he’s planning his next food attack. I wanted to scream when he did that, you just can’t afford to be startled when you’re in the finishing stages of hours of work. Eeeeeek!

The point being, if I can do this with a drill and a dremel, you’ve got no excuses!

@ TexasLumens - Yes I gave up, but it wasn't you. After years in Manufacturing and years of dealing with tool shops, I realize that anything that is quoted will take twice as long as it's quoted for and then it probably won't fit the first time unless it was done off a CAD file to begin with...Wink

@ DBCstm - Polishing is actually easier your way, than it is with a lathe. That's what buffers are made for and it's really not as shiny as it seems. It would still need to be plated, to be the most efficient. It's the best finish for any metal reflector. Polish first, then plate it.

Why can’t my way be done with a lathe? It doesn’t HAVE to be rigid for what I do, but just because it’s chucked in a lathe doesn’t mean you can’t put your finger on it. :wink: I wouldn’t hesitate to hold a piece of 1000 grit paper to the product with my fingertip while it spun on the lathe, or flip the 1000 grit over and put some polish on the paper backside to finish the job.

I haven’t seen many Perfect plating jobs when it comes to that, there’s ripples, bubbles, chips, dings, swirls, orange peel, and that inevitable piece of dust under the finish. And get the perfect one then watch how long it takes to get a finger print on it that can’t be wiped off without destroying the perfection.

@DSCtbm - If you want to hold your finger on a part in a lathe, I would be more than glad to watch. Wink and take a video. It's part of the four most famous last words in the South. "Hey y'all watch this!"

If plating is done correctly, you could put your fingers on it all day and it could wipe off. Same as any inclusions. The Chinese reflectors are not good examples of proper prep or proper plating. I worked for a few years at Schaeffer Pen and I know what proper prep, buffing and plating are. It's nothing like the crap we see on every Chinese reflector I have seen so far. Hard Chrome plating won't mark with your finger. The stuff they do to these reflectors isn't that.

Anyhow... I haven't been posting much in the forums any more, so I need to keep my hand in and stir the pot once in a while...Sealed

Yeah O-L, I guess I see your point. Being a native Texan, I forget how much damage my finger could do to a nice lathe if it decided to try and bite me. :wink:

You should see how close I get on a 10” table saw…

And thanks for the perspective on how the cheap lights can be sold so low, if done right they’d be a couple hundred dollars as an entry point.

Hi guys... I missed this! ha! I am writing this from Joplin, MO. I had to leave unexpectedly last evening to go to Sedalia to see a customer. Finally got done a fefw hours ago, made it as far as a Hampton Inn in Joplin and just called it quits. Time to play! I'll peddle more tomorrow toward home.

The thing about doing the reflector on the lathe is time. It just takes too long compared to buying a good reflector. At least for me it does. I'm slow!! Surprised I do like the idea of scaling some designs. This road trip has given me some think time...hours & hours of it!! More tomorrow. Dan.

Tomorrow somehow never comes
When it carries a promise of great things
We await perched on the edge of our seat
And anticipate what it might bring

But somehow the days march slowly along
And the promises made just aren’t kept
We glide along on the drifting waves
Of the rivers of tears we have wept

Days turn to weeks turn to months and then
After forgetting just why we were waiting
Along comes someone with a prize to win
All because someone was baiting!

Over 2 months of tomorrows….what’s up? :wink:

POOR BABY! If I felt any worse about this I'd cry!........ NOT! Tongue Out

Why... well... business! that's about as simple as I can put it. I walk past that project every day about 15 times WISHING I could stop & play. No such luck!! Yell

I'll get'er done!! Dan. ...OH... MORE TOMORROW! Tongue Out Just don't know WHICH tomorrow!!