Lens sand blasting to get flood light

Has anyone tried to sandblast a glass lens on 1 side to get a flood light (to create a UCL-LDF like lens)? Nice effect? I may want to try this for a D maglite!

If you use a stock lens it won't be blasted, it will be toast! The stock lexan is pretty soft.

It is a good idea, but it would probably just be less of a hassle to etch the glass using one of the glass etching liquids available.

Bill

Wet/dry sandpaper will also do a dandy job of frosting glass or plastic.

It will give you less throw and more flood, but don't forget losses in light transmittance...

What is an average % of light loss with frosted lens? This Maglite have an UCL lens but I would try with a mineral glass lens (I have some backup )

When sandblasting the media/pressure used will give huge differences in the "frosted" glass. I would start with fine glass beads at low pressure and move up from there. I've got two blast cabinets, one with glass beads and the other with 60 grit aluminum oxide...the A/O will really tear stuff up if your not careful.


Mike

Tried to sand a plastic lens I had and it's a bad idea! It doesn't kill throw, it kills the light completely!

WildChild,

What did you sand with?

Use wet/dry 800 or finer.

Bill

No 200 (the finest I have here) but only with light pression! Anyway I think the best would be to order a UCL-LDF from flashlight lens if I really need one!

bombelman said:

It will give you less throw and more flood, but don't forget losses in light transmittance...

Click to expand...

Indeed you will get a very nice flood, but the loss of torch-lumens will be severe !! (guess about 30% loss depending on the heavyness of frost)

Regards,

Ra.

From my experiment it seems more than 30% to me!

WildChild,

Have you considered an UCL with LDF put on it?

link

The UCL-LDF lens has virtually no transmission loss.

Why not just place some sticky tape over the lens, much less damaging if you don't like the effect.

I find the "magic" clear tape best.

Layer it for best effect.

Another thought is clear Acrylic spray paint. I bought a can of this to sputter a reflector. My wife uses a mini-mag with the Nite-Ize LED replacement for reading at night. The beam is not great holding the light 6 inches from the book. I had a mag accessory pack for the mini-mag. It had an anti-roll bezel and an accessory lense. I sputterred one side of the lense and used the anti-roll bezel to hold it on. The beam was a wider hot spot and cleaned up the artifacts. The light is not bright to begin with so the light loss is not a factor. I would try this on an OEM plastic lense first to see if you like the effect. Try a light coat first. I went a little heavy on my first try on a reflector.

I hope this helps.
Doug