have y'all seen this? schoolhouse electric leather-clad flashlight

Looks pretty sweet. Out of stock right now, but for $40, could make for a ballin’ starting point for crazy mods if the reflector is any good.

link

I don’t recognize the light, but the stuff I do recognize on that site (like the Opinels for $74) makes me think that their products horribly overpriced.

How do they hold up to use :quest:

No idea whatsoever. It just popped up on an RSS feed today. Never heard of the light or brand before.

Subscribed. Thanks for the link, I want to see where this discussion goes.

There have been few other vintage style flashlights mentioned around BLF in the last year or two, but I think this is the first “leather clad” one I’ve seen. The others were incans IIRC, not LED like this one. It’s not gaining us anything though: On this one I note that the LED sits very deep inside the reflector. While that’s expected on an incan, for the LED it make sense to design the reflector such that it focuses all the way at the back. All the reflector behind the LED is wasted… and converting to a good power LED requires the extra effort of either building a podium/post or cutting the reflector and then building a platform.

Reflectors of incandescents are usually too long focal length, that is shallow, to catch much light from an LED. One tends to get a small yellow hot spot and lots of spill. A retro light can’t be much different or it wouldn’t look right. Maybe a retro light is a good candidate for a retro backwards facing LED with either a block of aluminum carrying the heat away or liquid cooling.

That Opinel for $74, it must be some really expensive paint that someone has used, I thought it was bands of different woods at first. Then I realized and had a good laugh.

$20 for the base Opinel and $27 for each stripe.

Saw this light in John Lewis (or somewhere similar) last Christmas, but it was an incandescent lamp version. It was made of the most wafer-thin metal and was in no way even splash proof but I still considered buying it…then I saw the price £40 :open_mouth:

Do like the leather though… :slight_smile:

I have been pining away for my leather tools that I used to have. I have always wanted to do a Maglite with tooled leather over top of the body, but I just can't get back into that stuff. It was way too expensive a hobby, but a lot of fun.