Trial by fire: Haiku from the ashes

[JWRitchie76]

One of the best threads I've read on CPF in a long time. Bravo to you Don for the wonderful gesture. Prayers to Liz in this tough time.

 

[AO JAR]

Stefan, thanks for the concern about privacy. Its amazing what inofrmation you can get these days from a cell phone pic!
I am the Iphone 4 in Texas whose home burned and owner of the newly resurrected haiku. I am ok with my information being tagged in the pic.

I'll chime in to say a big thanks to Don for putting back together a small piece of my life. When the fires came through, there was no fire department presence (the winds made it too dangerous) so the houses that burned, burned to the ground. It is a testament to Don's work that this is one of only a handful of things I was able to salvage. None of my other lights were even found, much less able to be restored to working condition.
So my little haiku will remain with me as a testament to survival and renewal as I continue this journey!
~Liz

+1 I agree with you 100 percent. The flashlight is now a testomony to what you went through. And like the light, you will make it through all of this.

 

[beach honda]

Righteousness from chaos! All the most important things still remain!

 

[carrot]

A very special Haiku to hopefully brighten the day of someone who has lost so much. There is no better tool than one with a story.

 

[nbp]

Our thoughts are with you Liz as you rebuild after all this. :candle:

Maybe that Haiku can be a little bit of normalcy in a crazy mixed up time. I would not part with that thing for any price were I in your shoes. Truly a special little item.

Don, thanks for being not only a great light maker, but a genuinely caring individual. We need more of those in this world.

 

[Obijuan Kenobe]

This is just plain amazing.

Liz, I wish you a speedy recovery with no hassles from the insurance folks.

I hope your new Phoenix serves you well. I personally think it's the coolest McGizmo light in the world now.

I am sure it will bring good tidings for years to come.

Best wishes from Norway,
obi

 

[nuphoria]

Certainly one of the most unique looking lights we've seen here!

Great job on the rebuild

 

[Barefootone]

:shakehead

Stefan, thanks for the concern about privacy. Its amazing what inofrmation you can get these days from a cell phone pic!
I am the Iphone 4 in Texas whose home burned and owner of the newly resurrected haiku. I am ok with my information being tagged in the pic.

I'll chime in to say a big thanks to Don for putting back together a small piece of my life. When the fires came through, there was no fire department presence (the winds made it too dangerous) so the houses that burned, burned to the ground. It is a testament to Don's work that this is one of only a handful of things I was able to salvage. None of my other lights were even found, much less able to be restored to working condition.
So my little haiku will remain with me as a testament to survival and renewal as I continue this journey!
~Liz

Hi Liz,

I'm so glad that you and no one else were hurt in the fire.
When you can walk away from a disaster like that everything else in the world becomes much smaller and less important IMHO.

Your Haiku from the ashes is some story and what's the likelihood that out of all your possessions this small piece of Ti was one of a few things that survived those horrific flames and heat.
"So my little haiku will remain with me as a testament to survival and renewal as I continue this journey!" I just love how you said that, it's wonderful.

I had much less of a disaster happen to me a few years ago when my Aleph 1 exploded and caught fire right next to me.
Here's the link to that story if you care to read it. http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?170187-My-Aleph-1-Exploded-and-cought-on-fire.
By no means am I trivializing or even comparing what happened to me to you, but what I'm trying to say is that something wonderful also protected me that day by not having my light explode in my face and you also were able to walk away from your tragedy and this is good.

As Don (McGizmo) has rebuilt your Haiku and this doesn't surprise me because I experienced Don's generosity along with Wayne Yamaguchi's (Dat2zip/ Sandwhich shop) back when my Aleph 1 needed to be put back together.
Needless to say CPF has changed over the years since I became a member, but there is still a thread of common decency and compassion that exists in this groups members and this speaks volumes.

I only mention this as an offer to you Liz if you want your Haiku refinished and I doubt that you do I can return it to it's previous luster and finish. I have experience with metal buffing and Ti will take to buffing rouge as a duck to water.
I'm sure you will want to keep your "Haiku from ashes" in it's distressed condition which by the way looks cool, but I make the offer out of wanting to help out if you would be so interested.

I have went on quite long enough as us old retired guys tend to do :shakehead .

Be well~

Jeff

 

[RocketTomato]

Sorry to hear about the loss of your home and I wish you the best of luck as you move forward.

I think the Haiku looks amazing as is and wears it's battle scars proudly.

And I agree with Barefootone, that is a great quote describing your Haiku.

 

[fyrstormer]

I only mention this as an offer to you Liz if you want your Haiku refinished and I doubt that you do I can return it to it's previous luster and finish. I have experience with metal buffing and Ti will take to buffing rouge as a duck to water.
I'm sure you will want to keep your "Haiku from ashes" in it's distressed condition which by the way looks cool, but I make the offer out of wanting to help out if you would be so interested.

You know, you've got me thinking that it might be an interesting effect to put the Phoenix on a lathe and trim the flame-anodizing off just the outermost bands of metal, similar to what Don does with his bead-blasted Haikus. Maybe that would be a good "dress-up" mod once the flame-anodizing starts to wear off around the edges, as I'm sure it will do eventually.

 

[RocketTomato]

Amazing to consider the heat it must take to vaporize that sapphire.

The sapphire would be siting in a pool of molten titanium long before it would even consider melting. It probably was forcefully ejected as the battery heated up and wound up shattering into several pieces.

 

[grnamin]

Liz, thank goodness you are alright. Don, you're one heck of a good karma kind of guy.

 

[octaf]

What a story !
The haiku looks wonderful & unique.

One question. Just curious.
Would Ti host survive the instant explosion of the rechargeable battery ?

 

[fyrstormer]

What a story !
The haiku looks wonderful & unique.

One question. Just curious.
Would Ti host survive the instant explosion of the rechargeable battery ?

Most likely. That light was softened by heat and it still wasn't damaged when the CR123 vented.

 

[grnamin]

What a story !
The haiku looks wonderful & unique.

One question. Just curious.
Would Ti host survive the instant explosion of the rechargeable battery ?

I think an explosion will always travel along the path of least resistance so the Ti would survive. I may be wrong, though.

 

[RocketTomato]

Yes it will survive, as evidenced by the pictures in post #1.

 

[jemab]

All, the Haiku arrived back in Texas today! I won't post any pics as I can't do better that what Don already posted. I am diggin' the gnarly dark finish it has. Took it out after dark to play with it for a while. Now its back to nightstand duty once again!
Thank you Don for giving new life to my survivor Haiku.

 

[octaf]

I think an explosion will always travel along the path of least resistance so the Ti would survive. I may be wrong, though.

I agree with you.
I just thought that the instant explosion like a bomb and the slow expansion in heated circumstance could be different.
Although I guess that Ti is stronger than the screw locked McClicky switch & LE, and the Orings sealed lens & rubber boot, I still cannot imagine the outcome of the instant explosion.

 

[McGizmo]

Hi jemab :wave:
Glad the light got back to you and that it is back again in service.

Would Ti host survive the instant explosion of the rechargeable battery ?

Clearly the Ti host survived this particular event. I would suspect that in some other form of battery event that the switch and front end would be expelled as they were in this case without damage to the titanium but if it were an instant explosion as you suggest, the ends taking off could certainly be dangerous projectiles!! In the case of a single cell I am not sure how an even could be triggered internally and if it was due to excessive heat externally like this case, I would expect similar results as this case.

I am no expert on such matters but I doubt that a battery contains the energy needed to actually blow up the titanium host short of an energy release at the atomic level. And I think you would need to cap off the ends of the light with something more capable of containing the energy released than is the case with the clicky switch and window retained by the O-rings.

 

[fyrstormer]

There are cases of super-high-power lights using packs of Li-Ion cells exploding when run on the highest setting, but those lights are all much larger than the Haiku -- and made of much weaker aluminum. Even so, the failure points are usually along threading or knurling cut-lines, where the metal has already been stressed by machining. I don't see a single Li-Ion cell -- or even two -- rupturing a Gizmo battery tube, not when there's a nice soft plastic switch at the back of the light.