tungsten is very brittle
Those 4 inch tungsten cubes are pretty tough though. On Youtube, Demolition Ranch shot various different guns at one of those cubes. Most didn’t even scratch it. The 50 caliber armor piercing round from a Barrett rifle only dented the surface.
For a flashlight, Tungsten makes no sense. The weight would be like making your flashlight out of lead. Yes, you could do it… but it would be too heavy to be practical. And if it’s kept thin to keep weight down, brittleness might be an issue.
tubes instead of cubes - thin walls - would be pretty brittle
a tungsten carbide [is that what we are talking about here?] wedding ring can shatter if dropped on a tile floor
wle
I'm really intrigued by the use of Ampcoloy (BeCu) as an ideally suited functional exotic alloy for a flashlight. Here is one with a Lux-RC programmable Nichia 4000K light engine:
https://orrbott.com/products/golden-orb-ampcoloy
HDS systems also did an anniversary run of BeCu lights and has it presently available. For four figures.
From the alloy manufacturer:
AMPCOLOY® 83 is an exceptional high forgeability and machinability beryllium copper. It's engineered with exceedingly high mechanical properties in mind, resulting in superior thermal conductivity, improved cycle time and mould life – up to 50% more when compared to Copper Titanium.
Could be a torch made in the UK,
where it's pronounced:
"al - U - Min - umum"
best to store your torch in the boot of yer car, to have a look under the bonnet.
Tungsten carbide (density 15.7 g/cc) is a very hard and brittle metal used for cutter bits in machine tools. It requires special grinding wheels and abrasive to shape it and is braze welded to the steel tip of the cutting tool. This is not the material being considered for flashlights or 4” cubes to drop off buildings or shot at with bullets.
That material is the original heavy metal, pure elemental Tungsten (density 19.25 g/cc), which is a free-machining material easily cut with a saw, or file, drilled and taped for threads, or shaped on a milling machine or lathe. It cuts so easy, like butter, to be so dense. i have made some 1” cubes from scrap stock, and a heavy holding fixture to use when soldering.
i wouldn’t care for a flashlight though, because my EDC has to be on a clip on my cap brim, which i use frequently every day—it would just be too heavy to hold on a hat.
BeCu could be a good material for the head of a flashlight. Depending on the alloy it is very flexible and springy, so a lot of thin cooling fins could be carved, making a huge cooling surface.
I suggested this once to Sofirn, but never heard anything about it.
It is not that easy to work on a lathe, though, because of fumes, and it needs a surface treatment to avoid formation of poisonous patina.
A shaving process could be used to make cooling fins very efficiently without the need to cut away the grooves.
Jetbeam had a BADASS BeCu one for a few hundred. I STILL want it. Just haven’t seen it for sale.
Nope! ……………but at least you spotted it.
It’s pronounced: A-lu-min-EE-um
……and, (for what it’s worth), where I live Tungsten is known as Wolfram.