Ways to Refinish Flashlights.

[Marquis07]

How do you refinish your lights? Once they get really beat up do you leave them as they are, or do you touch them up? What types of finishing do you find hold up the best?

 

[LRJ88]

I just leave them be if they get wear, it shows character. The finish itself I find not to be as important as the structure it’s on, you can have really good finish but if it’s on a lot of sharp edges and exposed points those will wear regardless unless you have a shelf queen.

 

[Marquis07]

I have a Tc15 that was getting prety scratched up. Ordinarily that's fine, but I wanted it to look nice as I have it on my belt all the time, even at church. I started by taking the anodizing off with oven cleaner, except for the threads, so I could still lock it out. I figured it would look like dull aluminum, but it actually turned chalky white/silver and the colour was not uniform. I tried sanding the body, but there was no way to get in all the grooves. I ended up using a burr bit in the dremel, and I roughed up most of the outside, and sanded the rest of it smooth. As the final step, I sharpie markered the entire flashlight and then wiped it off. The sharpie filled in all the cracks, and made a nice contrast to the bare aluminum.

I don't love how it turned out, but I think it looks decent. I can scratch it up all I want now, and the scratches will blend in almost completely.

Should I ever do this again, what are your tips for the process? Maybe I should sandblast it instead?

Before and after pictures, the anodizing was much more scratched before I decided to remove it.