Brass Goggles Mk I

Well, it's been a long time coming, but I have finally finished my Steampunk Brass Goggles Mk I. These were the first pair of steampunk goggles I attempted. I stopped production on them part way through because I wasn't happy with where they were headed and began working on the Mk II and Mk III models, which I finished and sold a long time ago. I eventually went back to the Mk I and finished it as part of my Aethernauts LARP project, which also spawned the Steampunk Phonograph, the Steampunk Diving Helmet and Bicorn Hat (among other things), which has oddly enough become the second most viewed post on this blog. Weird.

The Mk I was finished in the summer of 2011. It has since also been sold. Lets have a look at its construction. It began as a simple pair of green plastic welding goggles. The first thing to do was to disassemble them and sand and paint the parts with gold spray paint (my best approximation of brass at the time). Once painted, they were liberally decorated with greebles. Here you can see one of the eye cups, painted and with a greebles made from a piece of thin copper tubing, some hex nuts and half of a snap closure.

I basically just started piecing together little bits of things from my junk drawer to see what would fit together. All the pieces were epoxied onto the plastic goggle frames.

Here are the lens retaining rings, also painted, with more greebles. These were made from more copper tubing, the other half of the snap closure, more hex nuts, some brass thumbtack heads and a couple of wire coil jewelry beads. As you can see from the photos, the paint job was pretty spotty. I also had trouble getting the epoxy to hold firm under stress. I eventually started drilling into the plastic  to help set the pieces.

Around the eye cups I wanted to put leather trim. I had never attempted this before, but I had see it done on other pieces around the internet, mostly by drilling a lot of holes around the rim and sewing the leather onto the eye cups. I didn't have the patience for that. So I cut a strip of leather to go around each eye cup, dampened it a little with some watered down white glue, and stretched it around the edge, holding it in place with binder clips until it dried.

Once dry, it came off easily and held its shape. When I was ready to trim it and attach it permanently, I used a stronger glue.

The distinguishing feature of these goggles was the temple light. I first got the idea of having a small light of this style protruding from the rim and shining parallel with the lenses by a pair of goggles I saw in an Invader Zim cartoon. I thought it was an interesting visual element that looked very futuristic. I found a small clip on flash light at Walgreens that would be perfect for something like this. I have since seen this same flashlight used similarly on many projects around the internet, including my own MRX Designs prototype model FF-01 hand operated focused fluidic hydrolizing vector discharge personal defense apparatus but at the time it was new and hadn't been overused.

 I disassembled the flashlight, and painted it gold (brass). I also added a little piece of red cellophane to the lens and some copper foil tape (used in soldering stained glass windows) to the body to give it a more interesting color scheme.

I cut off the stem at the desired length and angle and applied it to the goggle eye cup with epoxy. I fitted a hex nut around the base of the stem to give me more of a surface to epoxy to. In future applications, I will also drill out the stem and put in a metal pin or small screw from the back side to help give the connection strength.

Here is basically where I left them for several years. You can see a couple more greebles; a wire coil, a tube of leather with a piece of wire wrapped around it to cover the ball-chain bridge. I abandoned them partly because I didn't have the parts I needed to finish the strap. Also, I wasn't that thrilled with they way they turned out, so I just set them aside until I could come up with a way to rescue the design. That never really happened. When the Aethernauts project came up, I needed a couple of pairs of goggles very quickly, and didn't much care how they looked, so I hurriedly finished these off with a leather strap and some acrylic lenses.

Here you can see them sitting beside the Mk IV, which are so slipshod and crappy they don't deserve their own post.

Both the MK I and Mk IV were sold in my shop after the LARP. As I am adding more Steampunk elements as well as Gothic Victorian elements to the shop's aesthetic, I will probably be making more goggles soon. Hopefully I have learned something from these early efforts.

Brass Goggles Mk. III

OK. Back to something you may actually want to see. These are the Mk. III version of my brass goggles. They aren't really brass of course. They were plastic sunglasses that I took apart and repainted to look like brass. I used a technique similar to the one I used on the Mk. II goggles, but I did some dry brushing with gold paint before I used the Rub-n-Buff. I figured that might make it wear a little better. The Rub-n-Buff can tend to rub off over time. I also, clear coated it. to preserve the finish.

Of course I replaced the elastic band with a leather one. This time I glued the band ends, so this one can't be disassembled. Oh well. I also removed the foam rubber padding around the eye-cups. I replaced it with rolled leather.

I took a piece of leather strap and rolled it into a tube, gluing the edges to make a smooth seam. Then I cut it to the length I needed and glued it to the inside edge of the glasses, just where the foam padding had been. It's not quite as thick as the foam padding was, but it's still pretty comfortable.

Brass Goggles Mk II (WIP) pt 1.

I love goggles. I was wearing welding goggles for sun glasses back in 1989; way before Steampunk fashion became all the rage. Of course, all my friends thought I looked retarded, but back then I made a lot of unique fashion choices, and I never cared much about other people's opinions (ask me about my 20ft. long hand knitted Dr. Who scarf some time). Well, now that the rest of the world has caught up to my taste in retro-tech style (i.e. steampunk), I don't feel quite so alone anymore.

As you can see by the title of this post, these are my second set of steampunk goggles. The Mk I version was started a month or two ago, and was put aside and has yet to be finished. Partly because I needed parts for the next step in its construction, and partly because I wasn't entirely happy with the way they were turning out. I'll post them when I finish them, but in the mean time, I have already begun work on the Mk II version, and already I am much more pleased with the results.

These started out as glossy black plastic, cup style welding goggles that I purchased on eBay for about $5. So far I have actually done very little to them, but they're looking very nice. I took them apart, and removed the side vent covers. Then I sanded them a little and gave them a quick coat of flat black spray paint. Then I got to work with the gold Rub-n-Buff. This is weird stuff, and difficult to work with. I hated it the first time I tried it, and I tossed it in the paint drawer and resigned myself to having just wasted a few bucks. Then I read an Instructable that gave me a few pointers on it. It takes a bit of practice and patience to get the feel for its application, but I'm getting better with it, and when it goes right, it looks fantastic. An hour or so of patient rubbing, and I ended up with an antiqued brass-like finish that is 10x more convincing than any of my paints I had been using up until now. Tedious, but worth it. I still have some more to do on them. I want to brighten them up a bit more.

After applying the finish to the main part of the goggles, I removed the dark glass lenses. They were too dark for what I wanted, and I wanted to try a different color. I kept the clear plastic lenses, and cut some clear plastic sheet to match. Then I sandwiched a piece of red cellophane in between the two layers of plastic for each lens. This is just temporary, as something about this arrangement is adding a lot of blur, making them unpleasant to wear. I'll work out a better optics system as the project progresses.

I completely ditched the elastic band and decided to make a leather one from scratch. This is, so far, the most actual modding I have done to these goggles. I cut a strip of ox-blood red leather off of one of my hides (I like to keep several leather hides around. I like leather). I attached the strap to the temples of the goggles using a small screw and a brass... well, I don't know what it's called; some sort of knurled knob. I was going to use a rivet, but I only had silver ones. Then I was going to use a brass snap, but the bright brass looked odd next to the faux finish. These stick out a little and add some steampunk flare without being overpowering. I'll likely add some more odd bits to punk them up a bit more. They are also a bright(ish) brass, but they don't look as out of place as the snap did. I used an antiqued brass buckle that I just picked up the other day at the craft store (something that had been holding me back from finishing the Mk I goggles). It matches the faux finish rather well. Since this is the first time I tried to make a strap like this, I wasn't sure if it would wear well, so I wanted to keep all the parts removable, if possible. That's why I also decided to use a screw and brass nut to attach the buckle as well. I made a couple of leather collars to hold back the excess belt length after buckling, and a leather collar for the nose bridge, but they are not in the pictures because I took them before the glue was dry for those parts, and I'm too lazy to take them over again.

These pictures kind of suck. The lighting in my house is not conducive to picture taking at night. I have included a couple of shots of the original goggles to show how they started out. I still plan to make a few more modifications on these. When I do I will post final pictures, along with the Mk I, which should be done any time now.

UPDATE:   While I had intended to make more modifications to these goggles, I never did get around to it. I couldn't figure out what to do next. Now, that point is moot. They have been sold as-is. Oh well. The Mk. I has seen a little progress, but is still not finished. I have put goggles aside for the moment and moved on to other projects. I will be back to them eventually. I still have more that I want to do.