For starters… an OLD fenix E0 Dart. Many many years on my key ring. Sorry about the focus, its not your eye-sight.

Cool idea for a thread.

My workhorse down in abandoned mines, all natural wear and tear Next time it’s been on duty I’ll take a photo of it… it can get rather dirty.

Hey, thats the smallsun zyt08? Did you mod it with that lighted side switch?

My EDC’s never live scratch-less lives, loose in my pocket with a pen-knife and work-keys. This one has been in my pocket for only two months now
(Jaxman E2L shorty with BLF-A6 driver, N.219B V1 sm403 R9080, lighted switch with 6 slow colour-changing leds)

Streamer wrote:

Hey, thats the smallsun zyt08? Did you mod it with that lighted side switch?

Mike C wrote:

Streamer wrote:

Hey, thats the smallsun zyt08? Did you mod it with that lighted side switch?

That’s right. It’s modded with side switch, MT-G2 LED and series cell conversion. Some info and link to original build thread can be found here: http://budgetlightforum.com/comment/1225228#comment-1225228

Thanks for the link..missed it somehow.
CLASSY light !

The legend of the Eagle Eye X6, what a finish!

Dale, I remember that test! LOL..you waitin on road side and the missus at the wheel... modern day Bonnie & Clyde...LOL

thanks for the memory

Hey, we wasn’t shootin up nuthin! (that time)

Edit:
Now she say’s I can’t be standing in the road in front of flying flashlights no more…

So I hadda make sure my fire was biggern hers…

She’s still da boss though, don’t ya know?

Probably not exactly in the spirit of this thread, but you said forced patinas were welcome, and this is about my favorite patina I own. This is a Relic, by Sigma Customs. Its made of MnBronze and given a forced patina, which has then ‘worn in’ where my hands touch it most. Love this light so much…

Dang emarkd! You ever wanna see that one enjoy a life somewhere else just give me a holler!

Coming up this Spring, the Texas Poker has been around my neck for 5 years! As you can see, I don’t often bother to clean the green from the fins very often anymore…

For those that don’t know, this is the light in my Avatar… a custom made 10440 light by Photon Fanatic styled after a Leupold rifle scope. I got it making 135 lumens, have since built several different drivers for it, in present form it sports a Nichia 219C in 5000K and makes about 730 lumens.

Edit:
My wife has been carrying this little Brass Beauty from DQG in her purse for several years now. It’s got an XP-G2 and FET driver, uses a Sanyo 18650FJ lap pull (it’s quirky about what cell fits) and she loves it. Obviously the tarnish stays worn off but the years of purse carry show in all the tiny scratches…

Cool thread and great pics, awesome stuff Dale. Love that light emarkd

Most of my older pics of beat up lights are gone , no thanks to photobucket beeps

Here are a few random work pics, pretty much all nichia 219b and 219c from 4000k to 5700k. Only the sc62d(luxeon T) and D4(xpl HI) are not.
Only the 6p and lumapower show wear, but pics dont really show it well. Random work/light pics
E1e singLED 219b 5000k



G2 with OR 219b mule 4500k



6p with 219b triple


Random work lights.some of


New lease of life thanks to CRX, 219c 4000k

Also thanks o CRX, little lumapower with 219c 4000k

D4 219c

sc62d 5000k 85 cri

Also have a D1 for work, 5000k flavour

The Emisars are certainly some of my fav lights of 2017(no doubt 2018 to), so i have one of each for work

Here are some with a little patina, been cleaned up several times in the past. Either ketchup or brasso……………been left for a while now though

My T10 EDC, about 6 months old.
I can’t find a better light for my every day use

LOVE that copper head on the Surefire GP!

My lights usually hold up pretty well since I keep them separate from other objects, in a holster or dedicated pocket. But they still get occasionally dropped or beaten against stuff during use so here are the two uglier scars on my M2 quad and X6 triple.

The hit on the M2 bent the bezel and the body close to it, I haven’t tried to unscrew it yet but I fear it may be stuck there forever.

Then there’s the baked M8 which has gotten some artificial weathering, I love this lights in-hand feel, both shape and texture, and I think as soon as I get my desert tan S2+ I’ll try the same method on it.

Did you say workhorse? Worn and hard used lights? Well, this is about the epitome of your title… a friends old 5 cell D Maglite that’s seen over 2 decades of law enforcement use.

He wants me to get it working again, make it “good as new”. I don’t know about all that, but I hope to make it shine again… output wise anyway. The leather collar was made for it by an inmate, hand carved and applied with a glue I guess, my friend says it’s been on there “forever” and I believe him. 13 years as a prison guard, another decade in law enforcement, it’s seen a bit of use.

LED LENSER T2 (3x Eneloop AAA)
This was my first “proper” flashlight used for work. Before i got into modding. The weathering on this light is 100% genuine. Used it for about a year during my work as a fiber optic technician, working on building a hospital. So it saw ALOT of dust and hard environments. The battery/runtime was a drawback. But none the less, it never let me down, even after all the use/abuse.

UltraFire – WF-501B – XP-L 1A – 6500K – 7135×8 2800mA Convoy New Firmware
Old host that recently got a new emitter + driver. A but too cold for my liking, so this is usually “the loaner”. As the firmware is easily configured to the users needs

UltraFire – U-S2 – XP-E2 R2 – 620nm Red – 7135×4 1400mA Convoy New Firmware
18650 tail light i made for my bike. Insane amounts of red light

Emisar – D4 – XP-G2 – S4-5D – 4000K
Emisar – D4 – Nichia 219CT – 5000K
The latest and greatest. Love these lights so much

Sorry for the lot of pics!
First this is a Nitecore P12 used in a factory for years to check something in a water as they submersed it and lighted underwater in every hour a few seconds.
It came to me in not working condition. The multi PCB driver has several peeled off joiner pads and some water ingress signs and a broken capacitor. I refered to them a Convoy M1 and I got the bad light because I don’t thought it is even repairable or could run reliable. But I made it work then so I have it.







After I made it work I wanted to try strip anodizing so I tried it on this flashlight.

Then it got some polishing:

The other flashlight what I got in weared condition I made on purpose. It is a Convoy C8 putted in a bottle of rocks and broken tile parts and used a wise, some screws, a block of wood and a lithium power drill to spin it.

Putted on kapton tape and power tape to protect lens.

And it spinned and spinned fot one and a half hour in my automatized thing

Year old Pineapple

Semi-retired backup light; Solarforce L2, alongside current work light - Convoy M2.

All markings from genuine use/abuse, & mainly being dropped onto a concrete floor

All of my lights are mint, never carry them in pocket with other items, never lay them on concrete or other rough surfaces, always wrapped in towels when packing more that one. Have a friend who can wear the finish off a light in a week or two, has even broken battery tubes in half before.

Early Gen 1 Maratac CU … Vinh Mod … Trusty AAA.

My Olight Trio … DIY forced “Hard Boiled Egg” patina.

What’s that clock next to the Maratac? It looks really cool ( and the Maratac too of course )

I tossed this titanium Rey Lan in my fireplace.

It really stayed in a bit longer than I anticipated. Our power went out later that afternoon and the fireplace became our heat source — for almost two days.

After finally fishing the parts out of the coals days later, I cleaned the whole thing up and then went at it with my dremel. A nylon “buffing” wheel and an emory wheel gently smoothed out most of the heaviest deposits. Then I “polished” the whole thing with a cloth buffing wheel and rouge, and finished with a microfiber and simichrome polish. I also had to really clean up all the electrical path contact points, those had to be brought back to bare metal. Then I put it back together and loaded it up with ice-blue trits.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect, other than dark – I wanted dark. At first it was a bit more mottled than I wanted it to be, but its really grown on me. It looks like the fire wanted it to look, and that’s cool I think. I really like how it turned out.