The Hobbit Hole basement, part 1

October 27th, 2006

Even when you live in a Hobbit hole as comfy as the Baggins’ hole-into-the-hill at Bag End, you still have a basement where you keep your mathoms, those items that you don’t know what to do with, but are too good to throw away. Among Hobbits, mathoms are usually saved, and given away on birthdays. It’s a Hobbit tradition to give presents on birthdays, not receive them.

In the course of our troop support work, I’ve managed to acquire a few mathoms. It’s now time to give them away to any of our American troops who want them (no matter how odd the item seems to be).

The first item is an adapter that allows small diameter (under an inch) flashlights to be mounted on the accessory rails of a weapon. Flashlights in this category include the Mini Maglite, a flashlight familiar to almost all our troops.

In an earlier article, I mentioned my opinion that using ordinary flashlights on weapons is not the best of ideas. Everything might work perfectly, or the fragile lamp filament might fail on the first shot.

That being said, I still purchased three of these plastic adapters for evaluation. They do hold the flashlight securely, and lock onto the rail properly. However, an AA flashlight does not put out a lot of light. That’s just the nature of the beast.

However, if you want to experiment, these adapters are offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Other AA flashlights might also work too, due to the adjusting screw on the clamp. You’ll have to supply your own flashlight, because I’m keeping the gold-anodized MiniMaglite used in the pictures.

There will be more items from the Hobbit Hole basement as I go through our mathoms, so keep looking for things that might or might not work (if it’s really junk, I’ll be throwing it away), but could be a handy gadget in helping you in the defense of America.

Entry Filed under: General, Troop support, Troop Tech, Hobbit Hole Skunk Works