If you can keep a very light touch with the buffing wheel, and keep the surface "wet", by using more compound, it should be ok. Wheels take away detail on any edges and that's why I do it by hand, but it's tedious at best, especially with the hot days.
Thanks for the advice MRsDNF and Old-Lumens. Much appreciated.
It's going to be a challenge (to put it mildly) to finish my build this weekend. Plan to hit it tonight, Saturday, and Sunday when ever I can get a chance. Won't be able to work on it Monday.
Here is a picture to give a rough idea of what the head will look like. It doesn't include the anti-roll device yet, which will also serve as a shoulder harness point and future mounting point for a handle. I still have to fabricate that part.
Bump for my poor light to be's state of mind (See OP).
Massive Photon Dispatcher!
Mega Photon Dealer?
Oh, oh, oh! I know!
Modular Portable Daylight!
Not the name, but those are some pretty fricken cool ideas. Guess you got first dibs on them if you ever want to name a light so. Thanks for trying DavidEF.
In the spirit of acronyms, how about The BMF? (Bocephus Magnum Flashlight)
LOL, good one. Big fan of Hank Williams Jr and got a kick out of the unspoken not family friendly potential meaning of those initials.
I better end the attempt to hype up this light because tonight's work did not bode well for a successful outcome.
I had real hard time keeping all the fins from shifting. As a result, a couple drill bits bound up and snapped. Spent the whole evening just trying to drill the first hole, but did not succeed. Hopefully, I wake up with a better approach in mind tomorrow but I'm quite discouraged at the moment.
MPD stands for Multiple Personality Disorder on account of the light going to have multiple MCU's (brains), throw and flood capability, and a short and tall option.
I'm rooting for you. All the advice that I can give you is that when drill bits are snapping, then either the piece isn't being held rigidly enough or the bit is coming in at an angle other than 90 degrees. From what I can tell, OL's genius is in his work holding jigs. Rufus is pretty good at them too. One more thing. WD-40 and sharp bits are your friends when drilling aluminum.
Best of luck to you.
I read the above and thought that I was selling OL and RBD short. Their genius is in their ability to imagine what they want to make. Their jigging is pretty damn good too though.
Intricate details and superb execution, looks it was made on a lathe, really nice. Best of luck, hope to see this one finished.
I love the concept! Pure genius.. Although, I still don't know exactly what you are doing. 0:) :D
Looking forward to see more though.
I admire your skills. Yours looks like it belong in the machine made category! (unlike mine) The work you are doing looks stunning!
Can you take the fins and drill them one at a time, where you might be able to hold them still? Definitely need to hold the work you are drilling still and then use WD-40 for a lube and keep the rpms down. My hand drill is variable speed and I keep the speed down to where I see metal coming up as the drill turns. Too fast with a hand drill and it smears the aluminum. Also, aluminum tends to stick to the drill bit, so clean it off often. It's a pain to drill aluminum by hand.
Thank you Bucket and O-L. Great advice. I wish I had seen it earlier. I tried to come on this morning, but it seemed like BLF was down or something. I saw your advice during dinner and went out and tried using lubrication. That is doing the trick.
O-L,
Thank you for the explanation as to the way aluminum behaves. I now understand what was causing the shattering drill bits. I thought it was shifting disks (fins), but I see now I was mistaken. It was the aluminum smearing on to the bit's and then gumming up until the point it froze up. I'm trying to drill through 3 inches of aluminum. Before today, I don't think I ever drilled through more than 1/2" of aluminum.
The individual disk is a very good idea. That approach would have worked. I should have make a template and drilled all the disks individually.
Progress Report:
Bad news. I have spent all the project time today trying to drill bolt holes through the head. I wasn't aware of some of the issues with machining thick aluminum and broke several more drill bits. Each break required disassembling the jig and head and the digging out of drill bit pieces. Reassembly was time consuming too because my drill press doesn't drill true. So each disk has to be put back it's original position and orientation. Seems like it would be easy to keep straight, but when you digging out drill bit pieces and deburring, it's easy to lose track.
It's clear that I will not be able to finish this build to the point I was hoping. I will be lucky to just deliver a basic functioning thrower, which is all I'm shooting for at this point. I'll be cutting lots of corners and will not be doing anything that I can't easily reverse as I intend to eventually anodize this light.
Well it's late. I'm going back out the shed to deassemble the head and remove my last broken drill bit and maybe attempt to get that final hole drilled. Also need to stick an emitter in gas for the night.
Night folks. Tomorrow is my last chance to work on the light. Work takes priority and Monday will likely be a long one.
Best of luck. I really hope you can finish it in time..
Wow! This is going to be a great light. I almost would say: skip the deadline and make it as nice as you can make it. (but deadlines serve a purpose as well...)
I am jealous of the amount of available time that some of you guys have, and although it results in unbelievably beautiful lights, at the same time I get tired just looking at the amount of work that is put into your builds 
Good luck finishing!
All the best for the last day - I hope it comes together for you. 
I think you will be safe from the OL magic wrath potion. It has a limited range. 
It will be nice to see the finished product when your done. Its a real shame about the drill bits. What size were they?
i think the fact that you cant hold the inner ring make the problems for you. try to find ways how to hold all parts when drilling. maybe some rings that can be put in the small rings and make them the same in diameter as the bigger ones than put all in one big tube that holds all strong, than you can try to drill.
the other part you have done is high quality stuff and it looks really cool.
I just read through this.
Pity it’s not finished yet, but i bet it will be eventually. 
It’s a great project.
Again, you’re very good at it.
Beautiful parts.
Thanks folks for the above comments. Ervin Anastasi, your ideas sound good to me. I think those approaches would have worked better.
It has been a crazy weekend. I held nothing back and left it all on the shed floor. Unfortunately, the build prevailed . . . for now. It's too late for me to update the build thread for this weekends progress/fails. I have a big day at work tomorrow and I need to get some sleep.
I will eventually finish this build. First, I need to tend to many matters that I let slide during the course of this contest.
OP updated.
Best of luck to the remaining participants.