DIY D10 Pocket Clip

[danreetz]

While (im)patiently waiting for the 4Sevens pocket clip for the Nitecore D10, I finally decided to make my own temporary clip. It's already seen some abuse and taken some nicks and cuts.

The mounting ring is made from soft brass and the clip from 6062 aluminum-- the idea being to make it from materials that would be softer than the light itself, so that they'd yield/break before the light would.

In these pictures, the two screws are different. That's because I took the pictures in my shop. Later, I scrapped two working screws from a broken HDD at home and now they match.

I'm not terribly proud of my machining, (especially some of the hand-filed spots where I couldn't get the mill cutter in) but it's serviceable and I thought the CPF crew might like a look.

Regards, all.

 

[jag-engr]

Great job!

I wish I were that handy...

Just a thought, but if you smooth the end a little more and bead blast it, it may look better (or worse, I'm not sure :shrug.

I think you brass ring solution looks pretty good!

 

[TrevorNasko]

Impressive! It even looks like the structural shape of the clip will overcome any softness of the aluminum. Is this true? It looks fairly rigid.

You are going to make 5 more right and give them to the first 5 posters on this thread right?

 

[danreetz]

Thanks!

I do think bead-blasting would improve the looks, but I don't have access to a bead-blaster. Too bad! And so far, yes, it has been very sturdy but with aluminum, things tend to fail catastrophically. I can tell that if it were torqued on somehow, it would simply break off.

I'd make 5 more if I had a tilting vise. As it is, this was a real pain to machine. You can see, at the tip of the clip in the first pic, the marks from how I had it held in my precision vise. It was a lot of substandard machining practice, and that led to the odd marks and rough edges.

Thanks for checking it out.