Help with Ra colour variances

Good day. I'm looking at picking up either the Clicky EDC Executive (120-E) or Clicky EDC Tactical (120-T). The only deciding factor left for me is colour. I prefer light black/grey/olive rather than dark black. On the website from which I'll be purchasing it, both lights' colours are described as "black military hard anodize." However one of the pictures doesn't seem to match that description. The pic of the EDC Tactical looks a lot more light black/grey, despite having the same description as the EDC Executive, which looks dark black in the pic.

The pics are protected or locked, so I can't copy 'n' paste them for you, but I will provide the link to the page that shows them next to each other for visual comparison. Here it is: http://www.batterystation.com/hdsindex.htm

For clarification and to make it as easy as possible, the two I'm talking about have the prices $99 (for the 120-E) and $109 (for the 120-T) next to them.

Does anyone have any experience or info. about the colours of these two particular Ra's? Thanks very much.

My understanding of anodizing is that the final color has a lot to do with the preparation of the base material. the differences in color may be caused by different machining characteristics, as well as surface cleaning of the aluminum, or whether that particular one was bead blasted/polished/etc. before it went into the anodizing tank.

Different colors of anodizing can be made through the addition of other metals, such as (I think) iron, etc, however, natural anodizing is generally the most robust.

The color differences may be caused by different anodizing batches. Even in mass production, no two things can be made 100% alike. The difference may also be caused by the lack of a dying process. A lot of brands are able to make consistent looking black anno'd light, by dying the light in a chemical bath, to render out any inconsistencies. I don't think Ra lights does this, hence, the variability of the anodizing color.

The color difference may also be caused by a different lighting, background or camera settings, so that may be a big part of it.


I really don't think that Ra lights would make just one or two lights in a special color of anodizing, for a single customer, but I'm sure that you could find somebody willing to strip and re-anodize the light for you, if you looked hard enough.


Hope this helps, I'll admit that I know little of the actual anodizing process, etc., so this is just information that i've picked up over various threads. YMMV

Hi KarlMaldensNose,

I purchased an EDC Exec from Battery Station. It is indeed just as pictured there. It's black. I do see the difference in the website models as noted however. I also purchased a Ra Twisty and it's black as pictured. Unfortunately I don't have any of the other models to compare for you- yet!

Hopefully someone else with help you with the other models. They are great flashlights.:thumbsup:

CLB

The Ra lights are black. IIRC, back in one of the LONG Ra threads, Henry said that he is having all hard anodized aluminum parts dyed black to achieve greater consistency of color from part to part as one complaint that people had with his earlier lights was the slight variance of color from part to part.