SaliesDB
Newly Enlightened
Hello fellow flashaholics. I've been a lurker on here for over eight years, and apart from an odd comment or two, I've never really felt suitably intelligent enough to contribute much, but I hope to make amends with this thread if it all posts up okay.
I'm a fisherman and a boatman amongst other things (which include Chief of the Chicken House, Master Hole-Digger and Head Chainsaw Operator), all of which means I have lived for years in the company of headlamps. I like headlamps, and I've had some very good ones over the years, a couple of them quite expensive. But, since joining this site a few years ago I haven't bought much to wear on my head beyond the Petzl family, and things may have stayed that way forever except for one thing, which is that I bought a ZebraLight SC52w in 2013. This is mainly thanks to SelfBuilt, who is also to blame for some other lights I now own such as the Sunwayman D-40 and a recently arrived L3 Illuminations L10. I also have a DEFT for signalling Mars and a Photon Freedom I've worn around my neck for the past 20 odd years or so (excellent for boats and other strange places at night). I also have a boxful of rejects - the old, the bad and the ugly. I like flashlights and could easily become really addicted but then my wife would divorce me and the kids would cry, etc etc etc.
But back to the SC52. Damn, that thing was different. For the first time in my life I had an AA light in my hand that could give all of the headlamps I owned a good run for their money. And what fun to stick a spare AA in your pocket and know you had the night covered. I just had to find a way to stick my 52w on my head. I know, I could have bought an H52 of some sort, but why would I do that when I had a decent light in the first place?
So, I set my mind to a solution, and finally figured something out which I have now used for 18 months without any problems whatsoever. It's a cheap, tacky solution, but a highly effective one, and an answer to a riddle that now lets me put almost any 1xAA, 2xAA, 1xCR123 or 2xCR123 on my head in an instant. I don't own a 1x18650 or 2x18650 light but this may work for them too. Anyway, I figured after all the good things I've had out of this site that I might as well put something back in, and hopefully my solution will help someone out there who dislikes standard headlamps and their limitations. So here goes.
To make all of this possible,, you need a couple of things, and chances are you will have them lying about the house. First, you need a baseball cap (or any other hat with a brim), and whether it's new or worn-in and comfortable, it doesn't matter; all you need to know is it's going to become your 'go-to' night-time wear (though you may wear it all day too, like I do). You also need an old inner-tube from a bike (or a new one, they're cheap enough), plus a drill with a 3/8 bit, a pair of scissors, a craft-knife and some superglue (though the glue is optional). You're going to make something now that means you can wear a hat all day and then at night turn it into a headlamp with the small torch you carry in your pocket - most likely your EDC.
Take the inner-tube and cut off a 12" section with the scissors. With the craft-knife then cut out two strips about 12" long, 3/4"" wide. Thin out the two ends and shape the central parts so they look like the picture below. You may have something else just as suitably elastic as an inner-tube, so go-ahead and try that too. In a pinch I guess a #64 rubber-band would work as well, even if the shelf life is not anyway near as good as a piece or two of inner tube. My two pieces of inner-tube are still going strong after 18 months of fairly rough, 24/7 treatment and haven't needed replacing yet.
Now take your hat and your drill, and make four holes in the brim of your hat. You need the holes to be at least as far apart as the width of the torch you plan to use with your hat, but they can also be wider since this is a very adaptive construction. The photo below shows four positions where I could drill, marked in white. The wider apart the holes the easier it is to insert a flashlight - you'll see what I mean.
Take the pieces of inner tube and feed a 'leg' into each hole. Pull each piece tight down flat, and then tie an overhand 'granny' knot underneath the brim as per this photo. You can see instantly where this is going now, right? (obviously if you are putting a fat torch on your head then don't make the elastic too tight, though to be fair the inner tube grips well to almost anything. I have never had a torch fall off the hat, no matter what I was doing and I use this system as an additional light for biking too)
Pull the knots really tight (and this is where you may want to add some glue to keep them tight (though I never have) and trim the page ends as close as you want. It's as simple a thing to make as a paper-plane. I've made a couple of these hats and with a dark brim you don't even notice the knots. You see that without a torch the elastics lay unobtrusively flat, as well
Now you have a hat to wear all day, and then wear all night with a torch of your choice attached to it......
I can fit and wear all of my small lights (and a couple of other torches I have) with great glee and ease. If I was a proper flashaholic, like some of you are, then I'd probably be able to fit a whole bunch of other lights too! It should be noted at this point that if you want one-handed operation then the hat is best used with a tail-clicky light or one with a side-clicky, rather than a head-twisty - you know what I mean….
I do like my hat with the L10 in it, for example, but it's a struggle to go through the modes unless you take it off - which is not a difficult thing to do, for sure. In fact it's very easy, but given a chance I'll stick my SC52w on board, or a much maligned Proton Pro as pictured - both of these torches have a simple side-switch operation and for fishing purposes, the Proton is actually my first choice on the hat as I like to use the red LED for night vision purposes; the SC52 goes in my pocket. As for beam direction, in use you will find you can adjust the hat on your head to get the precise angle of beam you need. In case you were wondering, the SC52 is in the mail, I left it at a friend's house last week, a rather long way away.... sigh
You find at first that your hat may be tight to fit the torch into - this will change as time passes. You may even find yourself leaving your torch of choice in the hat, hung up on a peg as it becomes your full-time headlamp. But whatever you do you should find your torch sticks like glue to your hat and your hat stays comfortably on your head. No matter what though, you should now be able to wear your favourite torch as a headlamp, no matter what, and be able to rip it out of its elastic embrace in an instant should you want your torch in your hand. When necessary I wear my hat with a retainer clip so if it comes off it still stays attached to me; handy when you are by water, for example.
Most of you will no doubt not have read this far, and I would guess that most of those that have will be shaking their head in gloom. Hopefully though a couple of you will like this idea enough to try it and like it. That's all I'm aiming for. I love being able to stick almost any small torch on my hat, to use as a headlamp when no equivalent exists. It's also so much nicer to have something comfortable on your head at night instead of some contraption with straps that needs constant adjustment, or has a battery pack attached somewhere else on your body or at the back of your head. These sort of headlamps take up precious space in your backpack, too, and in some cases it may even mean you need to carry different batteries. Last but not least, a standard headlamp is sometimes a pain to wear on top of a hat if you want to wear one anyway.
Anyhow, whatever and however you look at this post, I hope it's not bored you and I hope it serves someone, somewhere, with a purpose. I have a couple of other ideas I've developed over the years which I may post up another time too. Sometimes it's a curse being a tinkerer, but I love solving problems.
I also know without doubt that the basic idea of my amateur construction will be bettered and improved here by some genius, and I look forward to seeing that. Have at it!
I'm a fisherman and a boatman amongst other things (which include Chief of the Chicken House, Master Hole-Digger and Head Chainsaw Operator), all of which means I have lived for years in the company of headlamps. I like headlamps, and I've had some very good ones over the years, a couple of them quite expensive. But, since joining this site a few years ago I haven't bought much to wear on my head beyond the Petzl family, and things may have stayed that way forever except for one thing, which is that I bought a ZebraLight SC52w in 2013. This is mainly thanks to SelfBuilt, who is also to blame for some other lights I now own such as the Sunwayman D-40 and a recently arrived L3 Illuminations L10. I also have a DEFT for signalling Mars and a Photon Freedom I've worn around my neck for the past 20 odd years or so (excellent for boats and other strange places at night). I also have a boxful of rejects - the old, the bad and the ugly. I like flashlights and could easily become really addicted but then my wife would divorce me and the kids would cry, etc etc etc.
But back to the SC52. Damn, that thing was different. For the first time in my life I had an AA light in my hand that could give all of the headlamps I owned a good run for their money. And what fun to stick a spare AA in your pocket and know you had the night covered. I just had to find a way to stick my 52w on my head. I know, I could have bought an H52 of some sort, but why would I do that when I had a decent light in the first place?
So, I set my mind to a solution, and finally figured something out which I have now used for 18 months without any problems whatsoever. It's a cheap, tacky solution, but a highly effective one, and an answer to a riddle that now lets me put almost any 1xAA, 2xAA, 1xCR123 or 2xCR123 on my head in an instant. I don't own a 1x18650 or 2x18650 light but this may work for them too. Anyway, I figured after all the good things I've had out of this site that I might as well put something back in, and hopefully my solution will help someone out there who dislikes standard headlamps and their limitations. So here goes.
To make all of this possible,, you need a couple of things, and chances are you will have them lying about the house. First, you need a baseball cap (or any other hat with a brim), and whether it's new or worn-in and comfortable, it doesn't matter; all you need to know is it's going to become your 'go-to' night-time wear (though you may wear it all day too, like I do). You also need an old inner-tube from a bike (or a new one, they're cheap enough), plus a drill with a 3/8 bit, a pair of scissors, a craft-knife and some superglue (though the glue is optional). You're going to make something now that means you can wear a hat all day and then at night turn it into a headlamp with the small torch you carry in your pocket - most likely your EDC.
Take the inner-tube and cut off a 12" section with the scissors. With the craft-knife then cut out two strips about 12" long, 3/4"" wide. Thin out the two ends and shape the central parts so they look like the picture below. You may have something else just as suitably elastic as an inner-tube, so go-ahead and try that too. In a pinch I guess a #64 rubber-band would work as well, even if the shelf life is not anyway near as good as a piece or two of inner tube. My two pieces of inner-tube are still going strong after 18 months of fairly rough, 24/7 treatment and haven't needed replacing yet.
Now take your hat and your drill, and make four holes in the brim of your hat. You need the holes to be at least as far apart as the width of the torch you plan to use with your hat, but they can also be wider since this is a very adaptive construction. The photo below shows four positions where I could drill, marked in white. The wider apart the holes the easier it is to insert a flashlight - you'll see what I mean.
Take the pieces of inner tube and feed a 'leg' into each hole. Pull each piece tight down flat, and then tie an overhand 'granny' knot underneath the brim as per this photo. You can see instantly where this is going now, right? (obviously if you are putting a fat torch on your head then don't make the elastic too tight, though to be fair the inner tube grips well to almost anything. I have never had a torch fall off the hat, no matter what I was doing and I use this system as an additional light for biking too)
Pull the knots really tight (and this is where you may want to add some glue to keep them tight (though I never have) and trim the page ends as close as you want. It's as simple a thing to make as a paper-plane. I've made a couple of these hats and with a dark brim you don't even notice the knots. You see that without a torch the elastics lay unobtrusively flat, as well
Now you have a hat to wear all day, and then wear all night with a torch of your choice attached to it......
I can fit and wear all of my small lights (and a couple of other torches I have) with great glee and ease. If I was a proper flashaholic, like some of you are, then I'd probably be able to fit a whole bunch of other lights too! It should be noted at this point that if you want one-handed operation then the hat is best used with a tail-clicky light or one with a side-clicky, rather than a head-twisty - you know what I mean….
I do like my hat with the L10 in it, for example, but it's a struggle to go through the modes unless you take it off - which is not a difficult thing to do, for sure. In fact it's very easy, but given a chance I'll stick my SC52w on board, or a much maligned Proton Pro as pictured - both of these torches have a simple side-switch operation and for fishing purposes, the Proton is actually my first choice on the hat as I like to use the red LED for night vision purposes; the SC52 goes in my pocket. As for beam direction, in use you will find you can adjust the hat on your head to get the precise angle of beam you need. In case you were wondering, the SC52 is in the mail, I left it at a friend's house last week, a rather long way away.... sighYou find at first that your hat may be tight to fit the torch into - this will change as time passes. You may even find yourself leaving your torch of choice in the hat, hung up on a peg as it becomes your full-time headlamp. But whatever you do you should find your torch sticks like glue to your hat and your hat stays comfortably on your head. No matter what though, you should now be able to wear your favourite torch as a headlamp, no matter what, and be able to rip it out of its elastic embrace in an instant should you want your torch in your hand. When necessary I wear my hat with a retainer clip so if it comes off it still stays attached to me; handy when you are by water, for example.
Most of you will no doubt not have read this far, and I would guess that most of those that have will be shaking their head in gloom. Hopefully though a couple of you will like this idea enough to try it and like it. That's all I'm aiming for. I love being able to stick almost any small torch on my hat, to use as a headlamp when no equivalent exists. It's also so much nicer to have something comfortable on your head at night instead of some contraption with straps that needs constant adjustment, or has a battery pack attached somewhere else on your body or at the back of your head. These sort of headlamps take up precious space in your backpack, too, and in some cases it may even mean you need to carry different batteries. Last but not least, a standard headlamp is sometimes a pain to wear on top of a hat if you want to wear one anyway.
Anyhow, whatever and however you look at this post, I hope it's not bored you and I hope it serves someone, somewhere, with a purpose. I have a couple of other ideas I've developed over the years which I may post up another time too. Sometimes it's a curse being a tinkerer, but I love solving problems.
I also know without doubt that the basic idea of my amateur construction will be bettered and improved here by some genius, and I look forward to seeing that. Have at it!
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