I should have listened

[AyeMayanor]

Been a lot of reflector cleaning threads lately and yet I still screwed up.

Last night: It all started when I tighted my L2D to remove the donut and some of the loctite flakes made their way onto the reflector. I took it apart and shook them out but one had stuck to the lense.

I flushed it with alcohol (70% is all I had) but it was taking forever to evaporate, so I used a hair dryer to speed it up. Well, the heat caused the reflective coating to haze, bubble up and even flake off a little.

I've only had the light for four days and haven't even had a chance to take it outside.

I emailed David at the fenix store to find out about purchasing just the reflector part of the head. *fingers crossed* Hopefully I can save this thing. (And my neck - my wife doesn't know what I did yet.)

 

[tebore]

The best way to clean a reflector is just to use distilled water to rise. Alcohol will usually strip the coating.

 

[frosty]

I recently cleaned a Mag reflector. All I did was run it under the shower attachment in the bath, shake the water off and then gently dry it with the hair drier. Came up great. Personally I never touch the reflective coating with anything.

 

[AyeMayanor]

I didn't touch the reflector. I used a cotton swab to snatch the piece of glue from the lense and avoided the reflector. That's why I assume it was the heat.

 

[tebore]

It was the combination of the Alcohol and the heat and destroyed it. I'd say it's mostly the alcohol.

 

[Geologist]

Yeah I've destroyed two reflectors over time - one with alcohol/cloth (years ago), and other my simply trying to rub off what I thought was dirt (it was a reflector imperfection). Oh well...

Geo

 

[golden_creature]

ouch!gc.

 

[leukos]

SF recommends using alcohol for cleaning their reflectors and windows (no wiping, just let it evaporate). However, I'm not sure if it is good for products from other manufacturers though.

 

[AyeMayanor]

"SF recommends cleaning using alcohol for cleaning their reflectors and windows (no wiping, just let it evaporate). However, I'm not sure if it is good for products from other manufacturers though."

Yeah, that's why I did it

 

[Size15's]

Perhaps not all reflectors are manufactured in the same way SureFire's are?

The secret is not to force it to dry using heat. I've ruined a TurboHead by forcing it to dry.

Al

 

[tebore]

The thing is Surefire uses a different coating, or no coating at all; it's also part reason for the Surefire beam the reflector is not a mirror finish. Most lights use a common vacuum process to adhere the coating(the process name is slipping my mind at the moment).

 

[65535]

tebore, I believe its vacuum metalizing.

 

[tebore]

tebore, I believe its vacuum metalizing.

I believe you are correct. It's damn good for a reflective surface but it's not very resilient, it's rather soft. Electro-something is the step up process on that giving a nice mirror finish that is rather strong.

 

[AyeMayanor]

"Electro-something is the step up process on that giving a nice mirror finish that is rather strong."

Electroplating perhaps?

 

[riffraff]

I don't know if it's applicable here, but "sputtering" is used to aluminize glass telescope mirrors. This also occurs in a vacuum chamber, and the aluminum is sublimed by nichrome filiments and deposited on the mirror.

 

[TORCH_BOY]

I have done the same before, screwed up a perfect M@G reflector by rubbing