The Blue Maglite Mod I sold all of these bare hosts and the thread is done here.

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
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Since I have 3 to 4 weeks waiting for components, I figure I might as well get the hosts done, so I can assemble them quicker when the parts arrive.

This is a 2D Blue Maglite and it will be another shorty 1D, when I am done.

I really like the blue, but I have found that it seems much harder when working on colors other than black. The least little mark in the wrong place, on this blue one and it's all over but the crying. Cry I've been crying for two days now...... That and swearing!Yell

I have thrown this light out 3 times now and have gotten it back out. Good thing the trash can is plastic and doesn't mark the light.Tongue Out

I decided to make some areas of the light polished since I think the polished look accents the blue, so here's a couple of photos of the progress??

bl1

The light marked where I will remove part of the barrel. This one will retain the stock switch, so that's 40mm longer than one with a tailcap switch.

bl2

Polished tailcap with the crenulated style depressions.

bl3

Polished crenulated bezel.

I polish by hand, so there are still marks in the finish, I just hide them well... Wink

I am also going to try out some other ways that I have been thinking about, on how to make some polished rings in the barrel without a lathe. All I can do is ruin the barrel and it's already been tossed 3 times, so it's used to trash can storage.Tongue Out

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Alrighty Then!!

The host is now shortened and I have finished doing the cosmetic mods. Here's a couple more photos of the finished host.

bs1

I'll call it the Blue Shorty or B.S. for short...

bs2

bs3

This is the actual seam where I shortened the barrel. I have always painted these, but I just love that blue color and the way the polished aluminum offsets it, so I decided to try something different. I managed to get a decent seam when I put the two pieces together, so I took some triangular files and a diamond "knife blade" file and opened up the seam. Then I sanded, steel wooled and polished it. I sort of like it!

bs4

I also made a shiny ring where the bezel meets the head in much the same manner. I think overall, this is probably the best looking light I've done. I hope it works well.

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That's all for now. I now have two shorty hosts waiting for components (which have shiped by the way!), so now I wait to finish these mods and find new homes for them. I'ts going to be very hard to let this one go!CryCryCry

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A short video on how to make cosmetic rings on a Maglite body, without a lathe.

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I love the look of the polished/crenulated tailcap on that blue mag! Fantastic look and it really dresses up the mag. Should look even better as a stubby :)

Nice work Sir.

-Match

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Nice looking Mag!!

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very nice. i like shiny stuff an awful lot for an ex military guy

6

Lookin' good!

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Absolutely gorgeous! What guts are you gonna put in this one?

Rich

8

Beautiful.

The tailcap is especially attractive.

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Thanks Everyone!

All these shortys I am doing will be XM-L T6 5000k emitters, with either a deep or shallow reflector. I bought 6 emitters and 3/3 reflectors, so the appearance will be what is different in each one. Each will use a KD new style 8x7135 board.

@dorpmuller - Guess what? Two of them will be 2C cut down Maglites! Thought you would like that!Wink

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I have a Red Mag and will be following yuor lead on this mod :-)

Thanks for writing up yuor latest mod project!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I'd be interested in a completed host with heatsink to put my own guts in... I have one more PTS heatsink to use.

Rich

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What method do you use to space your crenellations ?

Please don't tell me you eye it .

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looks absolutely gorgeous! Well done once again! If you start a list of buyers, I want on! ;)

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I do them all by eye Tongue Out

I take a piece of Masking tape and wrap it around the bezel/tailcap OD. I make a mark across both tape ends, where it overlaps. That gives me two marks. I take the tape off and stick it down flat on the bench and measure between the two marks. That's my OD (in mm).
Let's say it's 144mm. I decide how many crenelations I want (I always use an odd number like 3,5,7) and then I divide by the even number above the odd number I want. So here I divide by 8. The reason is that dividing by an even number gives me an odd set of marks on the tape, because of the first two marks I made at either end, wrap back to one mark on the object.
So I mark out the tape and put it back on the bezel/tailcap and mark the metal with a magic marker.


Now I'm ready to start hacking away! I do all that by eye.Wink

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you have a good eye sir

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Tailcap really draws the attention, nice!

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Thank you , sir .

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+1 Beautiful, just beautiful. The tailcap and bezel look great.

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Time to add some tritium

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One good thing about the family of Maglites, there is plenty of 'meat' on the various pieces that allow customization.