Re: Feeler: solid aluminion reflectors. Should I m
Les,
OK. This is a big can of worms, so bear with me:
First, all flashlight reflectors, I just found out (from a very informative post by Ginseng in the reviews forum), have a divergence from parabolic, measured in degrees. I assume that this is because the light source is usually not very close to being a true point source, and thus the divergence is needed.
Second, polished aluminum is not as reflective as vacuum deposited aluminum (aka "vacuum metalized" or "aluminized".)
Third, bare aluminum oxidizes, albeit slowly.
Fourth, bare aluminum reflectors obviously cannot be orange peeled.
Firth, the issue with Carley is not the $50 minimum. Heck, at any give moment, I could sell $50 worth of 1940's on B/S/T in short order. The issue with Carley is that they are "slow" (actually "sporadic and unreliable" would be better words--if you knew that they would deliver on a certain date for sure that would be something, but they don't)
However--and here's the crux--they are only slow in the under-coating and aluminizing (and potting, too), because these things all happen at their plant in Mexico. If all you want are bare aluminum reflectors, Carley has hundreds or even thousands of 1940's on hand, ready to ship out the next day; it's when you want them coated and aluminized or custom cut, or--God forbid--both, that you run into the problems.
Note that FiveMega had parabolic reflectors custom made but still ended up having Carley undercoat and aluminize them, and the result was a $25 reflector instead of an $8 reflector.
Anyway, back to the coating thing: yes, they can't be polished, but they are very, very shiny to begin with and stay that way with some care on the part of the user. Even a finger print can be soaked off with simple green, then the whole reflector can be rinsed with distilled water and left to dry. You can't polish them, true, but they are way more reflective than even the best polishing job you could do.
So, no, I wouldn't buy any--no offense--because if I wanted to go this route, I would just buy them bare from Carley and do it myself. Or you could do this.
Bill and I are actually looking into alternative coating companies, but I'm betting that they will all be significantly more expensive than Carley. We shall see.
Also, I think you will find that the bare, machined reflectors will need a LOT of polishing, but I could be wrong.