Now that’s a nice chunk of Ti.
Titanium is such a nice metal! Super strong and oh so pretty when heat treated!
This years contest looks to be a good one(like the others weren’t, hah!) with several new members joining the fray. Machine made has been under represented, glad to see that changing. Good luck!
Good luck with your build, Fritz! 
Thanks guys. Well, to explain the appearance of the name ‘Heike’ on the pictured sheet of paper - I am visiting my parents in Germany at the moment and used my mother’s laptop for the CAD model.
Yeah, the more contestants the better. I especially hope more people join the machine-made category to even out the difference.
I won’t be heat treating or anodizing the flashlight, that’s too colourful for me. But I am presently wondering whether or not I should bead blast the light. What do you think?
The switch arrived today:
I will use one of these long life tactile switches with a life span of approximately 1000000 switch cycles to control the flashlight. It wasn’t easy to find one with such a long life span, since I didn’t want the ordinary ones with just 100000 cycles.
Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time right know, I will have a closer look at all the other topics within the next few days, though. Right now I am busy getting started on the light, because I will return to Denmark for my studies soon.
Good news everyone! My drawings have been approved by my engineer and manager (girlfriend 
) so I can get started tomorrow :+1: :
Since this is my first time here I thought I’d say a few words about my lathe with which I will make the light.
It is a Wabeco D2400 . Not incredibly good or heavy and nearly 25 years old now (I have not owned it for that long), but I take good care of it:
A few years back I hand scraped the dovetails, readjusted the bearings and also made a proper attachment for my tool changer:
Unfortunately it doesn’t have gears, so I have to switch the belts every time I want to cut threads:
Well, I hope I can beat the titanium with this lathe, but we will see tomorrow
Oh and does anyone know how I can create a list in a list like here ?
Is your manager and engineer also your financier? The lathe looks real nice especially for the age. Looking forward to the update.
Thanks for the background on you lathe. Pretty neat set up. Best wishes on mastering that hunk of titanium.
So, here is the overdue update:
I finally found some time to get started on the tail cap.
The lathe is still all nice and clean:
Now let’s make some titanium shavings!
The titanium rod has a diameter of 30 millimetres on the outside and my three jaw chuck has an inner diameter of 30 millimetres as well. Since I want the part I am working on to be as close to the chuck as possible in order to avoid rattling, the diameter needed to be decreased a few tenths of a millimetre. At this point I was pretty curious about how my lathe and the titanium would perform. As it turns out, it isn’t a big problem. There seems to be a lot of respect for titanium, and I have to admit that I can’t take off too much material at once, but with a little bit of patience, good lubrication and very sharp carbide cutting plates, it works great.
Now the chunk of titanium fits nicely in the chuck:
So, I began shaving off material to reach the right outer diameter:
Next, I measured and controlled the diameter. I always measure stuff like that, so prepare for a lot of measuring 
24.99 Millimetres, where 25.00 Millimetres was desired - that’s a very good fit and I am satisfied. Actually it’s just a flashlight and not a normed engineering fit (can I say that?) so I wouldn’t need to be that precise and could just measure with a caliper, but whatever, why not be that precise? (Apart from wasting my life time haha)
Having gotten the right diameter, I started shaping the outside of the tailcap:
So that’s it for today, thanks for reading and tomorrow I’ll continue with the inside of the tailcap.
Thanks for the great pictures. Good luck with the build!
Thank you, I am glad you like the pictures.
Haha, well she certainly is the one I will have to convince of the usefullness of every bigger purchase for this hobby
You must be Joking! What do you do for a living?
‘hand scraping’ isnt something you see a lot nowadays. And I know it ain’t easy. I can’t do it (actually never tried it…) but my colleague does it.
That is a really nice lathe. I would love to have one similar in size in my shop at home. Thanks for sharing,it doesn’t look as old as you say it is. Very well taken care of. Best of luck on your light.
Thanks! I am studying right now, but nothing related to machines. And well, it is something completely different if someone professional does it or I am just scraping around a little in my free time. Hand scraping is kind of an art in itself and I would never dare to say that I only remotely mastered it. But doing it on a hobby like level isn’t that hard. You just need a lot of patience. Are you working in this direction? Müller Nick has many videos about hand scraping on his channel. I especially like his video about how the Chinese spotting technique (certainly applicable to my Chinese milling machine haha)
@ Andybibbville: I like it a lot and it is very light and handy with just 65 kilograms (around 140 pounds) which is unfortunately also it’s biggest downside. It just isn’t as sturdy as a heavier one.
After shaping the outside of the tailcap I started with the inside:
Again, measuring, this time the inside:
Everything is ready for threading the tailcap:
Here I used a tool holder with a Carbid cutting plate:
So, the tailcap is nearly done and ready to be parted off. I just added a chamfer to the inside of the tailcap as well as to the threads. Always add chamfers to everything There will be no sharp edges and it feel and look very smooth and well made:
And the tailcap is parted off:
A picture of the inside (you see a chamfer at every edge):
After the exhausting process of making the tailcap my manager and engineer made some lovely lasagna for dinner :
And after that I was strengthened enough to start on the body:
More measuring, but the diameter was still a little too big:
So I turned it down until the diameter was right, and I then measured again, just to be sure:
That’s it for today, thanks for reading and more tomorrow!
Is there a reason you’re posting everything twice? (including all the pictures!)
Hi Fritz
If it is ready,please make me a good offer.
I love your lights.
Regards Xandre
Yes. I think it’s nicer not having to look around for all the stuff in the thread and it’s also nice being able to post pictures in the ‘update-posts’.
Does it take too long to load the page?
Thanks but I am sorry, this light won’t be for sale.
Not a problem for me. Just wondering why.
Very satisfying seeing the nice shiny threads in the Titanium, isn’t it?
Nice job documenting the work. Looking good…