bushwhackeds entry (BLF 2nd annual scratch made light contest)

Giveaways and Contests
1

I’ve finally settled on an idea. It’s not going to be glamorous or even practical.

It’s my first build so it’s going to be simple. Hope you enjoy.

I know oldlumens is getting impatient with us procrastinators so I started on my build.

So here’s what I’m starting with… Say whaaa…

What we have there is a piece of maple, sharp hatchet and a hammer. Not really your everyday flashlight tools of choice.

Here I mark out the basic shape I want, also getting rid of a big knot on the side.

I take the hatchet and make sure the wide part of the edge is around the line, it doesn’t have to be exact because I have a lot of sanding and hand plane work to do.

Gave it a whack, and it looks like this. Good enough for me.

There is a knot behind the wedge, it makes the wood grain bend so I use a wedge to keep the cut straight. A wavy wood grain looks really nice.

Hammered the wedge in and this is what I got. You can see how the grain is wavy, one part is still sort of attached. From here I just peeled the piece off.

Et voila. One side done.

Going with the grain is much easier. No wedge needed. One chop and it’s nearly perfect. I ended up with this.

A rectangle. I’m a sawmill worker, outdoorsman and not good with working metal, so I chose wood.

More, even less exciting build progress, to come…

2

Reserved

3

Reserved again

4

I'm stoked. Would love to see a nice 100% wood flashlight, minus the components of course!

5

I saw this and wondered wood it work? Youre quite right that timber is knot likely, but going out on a limb as you have, Im sure youll leave us speechless.

6

Lol I’m glad someone is. My wife said it was lame. She has too much faith in my ability to create, and my patience.

7

Lol. For this reason I’ve been trying to avoid saying hardwood, working the wood by hand and other obvious innuendos.

8

Ya, I have a few watches from Original Grain on Kickstarter, and like them a lot. Since I got mine, I have been intrigued about the idea of a nice wooden flashlight. Let this be your motivation! Maybe you can incorporate a nice timepiece into the flashlight somewhere!

9

Nice start, I like wood! There have been a few wooden light build threads over the last years, but not many. Looking forward to the progress!

10

Cool, can’t wait to see how it turns out.

11

This is going to be interesting to see what this is going to be. :slight_smile:

12

Nice. I panic if someone asks me to build something from timber. I can burn it ok but thats about it. Keep the pictures up as I will learn from how you are using the different tools.

13

I will definitely keep posting how I use different tools. This won’t be a traditional flashlight though so I’d better burst everyone’s bubble now.

14

I think you deviated from “traditional flashlight” with the first swing.

15

Scratch built lumber!

Awesome start.

16

We had another member post some wooden flashlight builds a few months ago that turned out quite well. If yours doesnt go your way the first time around, toss that one in the kindling pile and grab another log. :bigsmile: Something like this might provide a good platform to conceal a small cpu heat sink and fan to cool the emitter(s). Good luck with your build.

17

Going against the grain with this one! I am gonna subscribe, and throw another log on the fire and watch this one. Oh, Guess you are going to use UltraFire batteries??

18

Yeah, that should work better than gasoline for getting the fire going. :bigsmile:

When I first saw the hammer and axe, I was next expecting to see an obliterated flashlight that paid the price for not cooperating.

19

That’s against the rules for the contest. No flashlight parts other than internals and lens. Timberfire? Maplefire?

20

That’s timely, my wife has been converting all our food to organic. Makes sense to build an organic light :smiley: