Your favourite flashlight material?

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If I could, I'd have all my flashlights have a nitrolon (polymer) grip on the body. I still like aluminium threads and head for durability/heatsinking/waterproofness but I love grabbing the neutral feeling polymer body of my G series Surefire. This is especially true in winter when cold metal knurling will wreak havoc with dry hands!

I haven't tried torches with most of these materials, only aluminium, stainless steel and plastic. Out of those three aluminium is my preferance. I do not like the apearance of stainless steel for torches, I like my lights to be black.

I made the bezel on one of my mod lights out of a piece of copper pipe and I really liked the look and feel of it before went and made a mess of it with varnish. I'm tempted to polish the varnish off with a dremel, even dark copper will look better than what I did to it.

I won't vote on the poll, my lack of experience with all the different materials would make my vote biased.

Titanium no question about that one. More or less indestructable.
Can't afford it thou. For those price no wonder they call it unobtanium :+)
Second in line would be Stainless. Durable and not to heavy to handle.

Titanium here as well. I've only recently started picking up flashlights made out of titanium, so far a couple of Preons, a Quark MiNi, and I have a Klarus AAA on the way as well.

Prefer brass or stainless steel in smaller lights. Larger lights in Type-III/HA aluminum (steel is too heavy, and not generally fond of most titanium, even aside from cost). Would like a custom in DLC-coating, but so far no luck....

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Surefire's Nitrolon has really grown on me over the years, I have three nitrolon Surefire's, a 10X Dominator, 8NX commander, and G3, and the 8NX and G3 are two of the most comfortable lights to hold in existence, the 8NX being the most comfortable light I've ever held. However, I am not a big fan of nitrolon when it comes to LED's, particularly LED that generate any significant amount of heat. Because it seems that the tolerances in regards to size vary more with the nitrolon lights compared to their aluminum counterparts (threading and bezels fitting properly etc), and even with aluminum bezels, the nitrolon lights still do a poor job of dissipating heat. They are poor host's for most LED applications. However, they seem to be just fine for lower powered LED's.

How can you tell if the titanium light you bought is actually titanium? Companies can possibly give you stainless steel with "titanium" engrave on it.

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Does it matter if I haven't owned all the materials on that list before? I have only owned stainless, Aluminum and plastic...FWIW. Of these 3 Aluminum is my preference.

I have to vote for Ti, since it will take more abuse and won't chemically react to anything.

To NeonLights: I have been EDC'ing my Klarus AAA Mi X6 for a month and it is SOOOoooo great! I just wish they made it with a .2 lumen setting. Then it would be PERFECT! But still, my favorite torch.

Titanium is nice... I like brass too... I have a strange fondness for composite lights as well (Nitrolon, etc..).... But almost all of my lights are aluminum!

I voted for aluminum because of the weight. In a smaller light I also like other metals as well. I'm really getting the itch for either a AAA or AA brass light.

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Depends on what it's for.

A keychain light? Stainless steel or other bare metal like brass or titanium.

Copper looks pretty when it's shiny, but unless you keep it polished, it gets the old penny look. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Brass needs to be polished too, but doesn't tarnish as fast or easily in my experience.

A plastic body is nice because it doesn't scratch or show wear anywhere near as easily as anodized aluminum. Especially nice when it's colder out.

Anodized aluminum's okay, just tends to get worn-looking after a while. The first scratch or ding is always the worst.

yowzer said:

Copper looks pretty when it's shiny, but unless you keep it polished, it gets the old penny look. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Brass needs to be polished too, but doesn't tarnish as fast or easily in my experience.

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If you polish it then varnish it it won't tarnish. However if the varnish gets scratched that bit will tarnish and look ugly. If your going to varnish copper or brass get a decent varnish because I used some crappy stuff and ended up with runs and dark patches

I find its hard to beat titanium for any application. its durable, strong, and light.

I believe that aluminum will be the standard for most higher end, higher output flashlight's for quite some time into the foreseeable future. Dollar for dollar, strength for strength, it's the best we have for the application intended. Plastics can give aluminum a run for it's money in certain areas, and plastics have advanced very far in the last few decades, but the heat issues we face with LED's is the reason why we won't be seeing plastic overtake aluminum use when it comes to high output LED's, at least for a while anyway. As good as the plastic might be, it can not dissipate heat as well as aluminum, and I don't think the issues with LED's getting hot as output goes up is going to go away any time soon. And even if there wasn't the heat issue, I think most flashaholics love the feel of a solid aluminum light, not to mention there is a stigma about plastic flashlights.