Hi-tech materials?

[Kitchen Panda]

It occurred to me that a molded plastic body actually requires more technology than our beloved NC machined aerospace-grade aluminum bodies with mil-spec hard anodizing. Injection molding cheap plastic takes a lot of machinery and fancy dies, whereas I'm sure Edison's favorite machinists could have turned out a suitable replica of 98% of the aluminum bodies out there.

Of course, they would be expensive to machine even paying 19-th century wages, and Edison would have freaked out at the teeny bulbs that cost less than a loaf of bread. Let alone LEDs and lithium batteries and microcontrollers...but still, the body is pretty straight forward. On the other hand, there's no way Edison's crew could have duplicated even the shoddiest injection-molded plastics with the technology of the day.

Bill

 

[StarHalo]

Aluminum was considered a wildly exotic and precious metal in that era, worth more than gold; the amount of energy needed to yield aluminum was almost unthinkable, so there was very little of it around. That's why when the Washington Monument was built, it was topped with a solid 100 oz pyramid of the most valuable metal of the day - aluminum.

If you showed your aluminum-bodied flashlight to someone of that time, it would take someone very knowledgeable about materials to know what it is at all, as most people had never seen aluminum; a layman would be astounded by how strong yet lightweight the light is, whereas the engineer would be awestruck that you used this fantastically advanced and rare material just to build a pocket tool, like if we saw a flashlight made out of diamonds or nano material..

 

[yellow]

I am not sure if I can find the question in the 1st post?


PS: while You are correct of the "High-tech" materials, still aluminium is the best to be used.
Cheap (in our days), easy to machine, extreme cooling capabilities (in comparison to plastic), very easy to cover with a hard outer cover, light, ...
thats why it is still used

 

[Kitchen Panda]

Aluminum was considered a wildly exotic and precious metal in that era, worth more than gold; the amount of energy needed to yield aluminum was almost unthinkable, so there was very little of it around. That's why when the Washington Monument was built, it was topped with a solid 100 oz pyramid of the most valuable metal of the day - aluminum.
..

Ooops. I guess I should have looked up the date for the Hall-Heroult process first. Make that "paying early 20th century" wages, since aluminum didn't go down in price till after 1886. Wikipedia says when the Washington Monument was capped that aluminum wasn't quite as costly as in Napoleon's day, but abou the cost of silver. Still pricy for architectural purposes.

Bill

 

[DM51]

I'm moving this to MMM, the home of this type of expertise.

 

[Barbarin]

Unobtanium is by far the most interesting one, with Chogokin Z, which is the alloy used on Mazinger Z construction.

Here you are. Last weekend in Madrid, Gran Vía.

 

[precisionworks]

no way Edison's crew could have duplicated even the shoddiest injection-molded plastics with the technology of the day.

Edison's early inventions started around 1880. Celluloid plastic was invented in 1862 & Bakelite in 1907 (considered the first true plastic). A flashlight tube molded from Bakelite would have been not too difficult to make, although it would have been made by wrapping the material around a form rather than injection molding.

The brown plastic material above is Micarta. Micarta is made from Bakelite resins that are heat & pressure impregnated into a substrate (linen in the example above). The material is easy to thread with taps & dies and will still make a durable flashlight tube ... or a chuck wrench handle cover.

 

[gadget_lover]

I'm always amazed at how much 'modern tech' was pioneered long, long ago. I followed a WWII manual to learn the basics of machining. The same principles apply. I've see working lathes made in the late 1800s. They still do today what they did then.

From wikipedia....

In 1868, American inventor John Wesley Hyatt developed a plastic material he named Celluloid, improving on Parkes' invention so that it could be processed into finished form. Together with his brother Isaiah, Hyatt patented the first injection molding machine in 1872.[3] This machine was relatively simple compared to machines in use today. It worked like a large hypodermic needle, using a plunger to inject plastic through a heated cylinder into a mold. The industry progressed slowly over the years, producing products such as collar stays, buttons, and hair combs.

I suspect if they could mold combs, they could create flashlights.

Daniel