Does the HA III finish on your Arc AAA LE chip or flake off??

How does the HA III finish wear over time on your Arc AAA LE?

Does the HA III finish chip or flake off?

It "chips" off, not scratches off, as that's the advantage of HA III. it's quite tough though, I accidently scratched it against the bottom of my metal desk, hard, did a LOT more damage tothe desk than the light. Left a few character marks but they're only seen if looked for.

The anodized finish is a electo chemical etch process. They place the piece of aluminum in a chemical bath and supply a electrical current through the item. This causes a controlled type of etching and oxidation which forms a coating harder than the original aluminum. It also creates a semi porous surface that takes the color of the dye if such is desired. No it will not flake off. The coating is aluminum oxide, you may have heard of aluminum oxide sandpaper. That is how hard that stuff is.

I don't think I know of a finish that is more durable than the high-quality HA III exterior that can be found on Arc and Surefire products. Yeah, you can destroy it, but it won't be easy. If you keep an HA III light in your pocket with a bunch of keys, it'll show some wear after a long while. Compare that to a few minutes with HA II. I've also been able to see some wear by dragging the things on concrete for a few miles. But I don't carry keys, and if I manage to keep my lights off the pavement, I can't tell my used ones from my new ones (after I clean the lint out of them).

Dragging your poor ARC's on concrete, eh? Come on, Darell! Give 'em a break!
(Do you attach them to the bumper of your EV?)

Originally posted by JollyRoger:
Dragging your poor ARC's on concrete, eh? Come on, Darell! Give 'em a break!
(Do you attach them to the bumper of your EV?)

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I think he means he just walks down concrete roads a few miles - probably when he's searching for water or grass.

Actually, I let my daughter drag one of my very fist ones around. We were out in the street playing basketball, and she was running all over the place dragging my AAA on a tether like a pull-toy.

I can confidently say that I don't own a more durable flashlight than my Arc AAAs. Have you seen the Mr. Science video of an AAA vs. a Minimag is the super "drop" test? Shouldn't be missed. Wonder where I put it...

Your "Mag Drop Video" is excellent.

Your daughter's, "uh oh" exclamation is cute too.

Peter Gransee

Hmmm. I can't get it to run from your site. No file extension?

But I found it on mine: Mag drop

Sure, bulb failure isn't the durability that we were talking about in this thread, but hey...