Mondrian Might Be Rolling Over in His Grave

[PhotonFanatic]

One of the larger lights that I've made in titanium--24mm x 113mm--this light uses a McClicky and has an 18650 battery:



I'm not sure why I'm so fascinated with copying Mondrian--these designs are a b*tch to make--each line takes four passes to get to the proper depth. It literally tied up my lathe for days on end--it's not as though you can just step up and do all the lines at once--it requires extreme concentration to do this manually. In fact, the total number of passes came to 264.

Well, extreme concentration is needed if you want to cut them perfectly. And, as always, I'm never perfect, nor is this light--it actually has one tiny mistake. But I won't tell the buyer where it is.

Final pics can be seen in post #18.

[ninemm]

Crazy nice as always Fred!

[post tenebras]

That's really beautiful! Well done!

[RIDE]

Super nice job Fred! Love that one!

RIDE

[fyrstormer]

I love your Mondrian-style stuff.

Now, if you could mix it with having some blocks plain, some dimpled, and some knurled...ooh...

[Light11]

She is a beauty

[Zeruel]

What a beauty. Argh! My eyes!
Need..... more..... pics

[jch79]

That ain't right!

Really awesome work and +1 to more pics!

Love the inset area near the (back?) - a nice break in the design.

Me like!

john

[Apollo Cree]

Well, you need to make some with a pattern of raised lines, not slots. Then fill in the depressed rectangles with vitreous enamel and make a cloisonné Mondrian light.

[PhotonFanatic]

Great idea, Apollo. But I need fine silver for enameling. Hmm, maybe a Mondrian Killer would be a worthwhile endeavor.

[KeyGrip]

I think yes. It would be a very worthwhile endeavor.

[Apollo Cree]

I've got to stop making humorous insane suggestions to crazy people.

[PhotonFanatic]

Here are a few more WIP photos. While the main battery tube and the head are fairly close to complete, there's still some tweaking to be done, and there was one more piece to be machined--the bezel to hold the McClicky rubber boot in place.

Some makers like to just use an O-ring to hold the boot in place, but I like something more complicated and made of titanium.

Here's the face of the bezel, which has been cut to size and threaded:





Next the battery tube needed to be bored out to accept the bezel, and then I checked to see that the switch and the boot would still thread in easily and fit well:




And then the test fit of the bezel, too:



Not looking too pretty there, but it needed to be faced and brought down to the right thickness, since it was a bit too thick:



After some trimming on the face of the bezel, it was fit into the bottom of the battery tube, which had been cleaned up with some wet-dry silicon carbide paper--hence the different surface finishes when the two pieces were test fit again:



And then it was a quick visit to the buffing machine to polish both pieces:



A lot of work for just a retaining ring.

It should look a little better when I clean the junk out of the holes.

[gollum]

stunning result

you are a maker who does it for the love

craftsmen such as yourself are getting rare

I feel for you when you mention 264 passes on the lathe

I did a raindrop pattern in some mokume
there were 200 holes...
I drilled them all 6 times over ,between flattening to draw out the pattern

ok now ... can you show us the mistake to see if we can spot it?

did I mention this is stunning

[Apollo Cree]

And, as always, I'm never perfect, nor is this light--it actually has one tiny mistake. But I won't tell the buyer where it is.

Is the mistake visible in the picture? I can see that the pattern repeats once, but then the pattern is broken. Then there's a slight break in the horizontal lines at the same point.

[PhotonFanatic]

The pattern is repeated four times around both the head and body, but the pattern on the head is slightly different than the pattern on the battery tube. The break in the horizontal lines would be due to my not perfectly aligning them before the photo.

Here is photo of the actual machining error:

[fyrstormer]

Well that's it, you've ruined it. It's worthless now, you might as well just send it to me and I'll dispose of it for you.

[PhotonFanatic]

This 18650 Mondrian Light actually was designed and built around two light engines--one a Nichia UV LED and the other an MCE LED, both, I believe, driven at 750mA and made by darkzero, aka Will.

The buyer wanted to be able to use either LE in the head, but he also wanted a lens in front of the LE's, too.

So here are what the heads look like--first the MCE:



Yes, those are four Trit vials that Will put in there, along with the glow powder.

And here's what it looks like out the front:



The UV LE in the head:



And with the LE on, shining on a Trit sphere:



I have no doubt that LE will be perfect for curing NOA 61.

And a few more shots, just because I have them.





Now I just have to hope the buyer doesn't croak when he sees the price.

[ninemm]

Wow.

[jch79]

Yeah... that's awesome. And useful as all hell - flood lights are where it's at!

[fyrstormer]

Looks gorgeous as usual. Does it use Aleph light engines? That would be extra spiffy.

[PhotonFanatic]

Yes, Aleph light engines.

[fyrstormer]

Cool! That makes it really easy to upgrade in the future. Is the design flexible enough to allow for a reflector to be stuffed in between the light engine and the lense if the user wants one? I guess that would require a really long tailcap spring, but it would be really cool too.

[PhotonFanatic]

No, the head was designed only for the two light engines to be used as flood beams, so the LEDs are fairly close to the top of the light, i.e., front of the head. There is no room for a reflector.

It would be fairly simple to make another full-sized head to go with the battery tube though.

[Chauncey Gardner]

One of the larger lights that I've made in titanium--24mm x 113mm--this light uses a McClicky and has an 18650 battery:



I'm not sure why I'm so fascinated with copying Mondrian--these designs are a b*tch to make--each line takes four passes to get to the proper depth. It literally tied up my lathe for days on end--it's not as though you can just step up and do all the lines at once--it requires extreme concentration to do this manually. In fact, the total number of passes came to 264.

Well, extreme concentration is needed if you want to cut them perfectly. And, as always, I'm never perfect, nor is this light--it actually has one tiny mistake. But I won't tell the buyer where it is.

Final pics can be seen in post #18.

I'd also add that this light would have seen in the falling water F.L Wright home as a nightstand option.

Sweet looking light/

[scout24]

Just stunning...