I have a D cell Maglite with a D serial number. The blue center piece in the switch is broken. The replacement switches on eBay are cost prohibitive. Any ideas how to get just the blue piece or a good used switch?
Welcome Dillon2672!
Could you please upload some image so others might help with their ideas?
What exactly is broken? bule switch housing or parts inside? there is like half a dozen parts inside, thou honestly in 20 years i have never seen one fail unless physically damaged, also where are you located?
It’s this blue piece. The two tabs on this blue piece that hold the metal tabs broke. I can take a pic of the broken one next weekend. I live in Spring, Texas.
Thanks!
Do post a picture. This sounds like a simple enough mechanical issue that you could fix it with superglue or fabricate a part to take its place.
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Sounds like he needs a new insert, hard to find spare parts for that today, old discontinued model, or 40 bucks for the whole switch, new maglite now costs as much or even less depending on a model. New 2AA led maglite today is brighter than old 6D with a bulb, Maybe someone here has a spare, otherwise not worth resurrecting
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Maybe try plastic super glue and glue the tabs back on. With the activator, it bonds very well to plastic. Might be worth a try.
Also, after the tube of glue dries up, keep the activator pen. It works with other super glues.
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That’s great advice, dedicated plastic-bonding glues/epoxies are much, much more effective than superglue.
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Possibly also 3d printable. 
Maybe the BLF community should take a stab at modeling spare parts for the near vintage mag switch.
Details are very small with the insert, depending what is broken, glue most likely will not hold, plastic that part is made of is not your average plastic, it is hard but brittle, having designed and printed things, this would only be possible on a resin printer, with certain types of resin, FDM will not give you neither details nor strength. Imo not worth it, considering it has to work with other premade parts, it would take several prints and design adjustment to account for shrinkage, on top of no certainty how it will act as in shrink or swell over time.
What you describe is the standard process for making 3d printed components.
If it takes a resin printer that’s ok by me, one can order a resin printed part from many online print farms nowadays. But I’m not so sure it’s required.
While a cheap FDM 3d printer from 10 years ago using cheap pla may not be able to make one, I am not going to declare that a modern Prusa using a quality filament (maybe made of the same stuff that mag injection molded) without any effort. The Mag part was designed a certain way to make it injection mold-able. We all could TRY to design a functional part that is FDM printable.
I’m willing to work on the problem. I’m not at home for awhile. Anyone know what sort of plastic the blue part is made from?
Well, let us know how it works out.
Post a wanted to buy on candle power forums where the old timers hang out. There are probably thousands of switch parts floating around cheap.
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If you still have the piece or a similar tab, superglue?