Restoring vintage flashlights

[bykfixer]

Tests, tests and more tests and both Soldier Boys should work normal.
Now the gunmetal one refuses to light and the silver plated one still won't switch on and off. Combine that with all that handling of the 100 year old coatings they are beginning to turn into worn looking lights.
So for now they are both stored without batteries in my non working/fickle operating display area. That sucks but sometimes reality requires a change in direction.

Well not to fret a couple of old 3D Ray-O's arrived.


A fairly nice Rayolite miner light circa 1918-ish (need to study the switch for potential year built)


And the Rayovac focus beam from likely the early 20's.
It has a patent number on the signaler switch and has AT &SF RY stamped on the coupler to the body (an old rail yard worker light).

The Rayolite needs a rivet repair at the top and much of the silver plating is worn from corners of the Rayovac. But they both have stellar insides.
Some clean up will take place but these 2 will remain in a "worn" looking condition.
I bought these as lights to "look 100 years old" from a really cool eBay seller.

 

[mom4ence]

And I have something to show

This my old love

 

[bykfixer]

^^ Very nice Mom4!!

Welcome to CPF btw.

So today when I arrived home from work a box was waiting for me. A surprise box at that. Member Liftd had bought a batch of lights at eBay for one he wanted and sent me the rest...


All are real nice. All work except the Foster and JustRite.

This post is about the JustRite Aviator light from WW2. I'll make 2 posts about that one. But first... the Foster has stuck batteries so that'll be a project in itself.

Back to the Aviator; the first post will be to talk about this innovative flashlight.


The second will be how I got it going again. Looks like it won't be too involved thanx to a previous (albeit botched) attempt to restore it.

So now about the light and how it works. The irony is I recently acquired two versions of PK's SureFire designed Aviator lights.

The switch

This is a cool design. Simple genious
You can slide the 2piece switch forward to have constant light or push down on the button to make a portion of the switch touch a contact point long enough to signal.

The business end has either the beam of a #222 or a (in this case) blue filtered light via a novel switch. (Reportedly red and green filters could also be had)





This blob of solder causes a battery to get stuck going in. I'm thinking a fine tip'd dremel bit will solve that issue.

Apparently this light was issued to Army pilots mostly but Navy pilots also got some. Those are supposed to have either USN or NAVY on them.

This is a plastic light with a metal strip between the bulb assembly/bezel and that nub sticking up about half way down the barrel. I labled it 'contact point' in a photo above.


The clip is fastened via a screw driven through a threaded molded plastic end.
The bulb assembly minus the filter is pretty similar to lights of that era...#222 threaded into a threaded collar


Well what do we have here?
Turns out the filter is red on this one.


The bulb assembly to the bezel
It's actually 3 sections. One is plastic that holds metal at each end of it. They are either glued or stuck beyond the effort I want to place into separating them being if something breaks it aint like these litter that big auction site...

Anyway, it seems these were used to spot the flaps on wings during bad weather and such.

 

[bykfixer]

Reserved for how to get it to light: