And more updates. All the carbon is done and it's time to start shaping everything up. I started cutting the overall shape out this morning but had to go to work (dammit) so I didn't get it finished, but a half hour of work or so should get the outer profile done.

After that, cutting out the lens areas (mildly scary) and the earstem attachment points.

Sorry for the crummy cell phone pics, I'll take proper photos with the DSLR when it's done. :)

Its incredible the amount of work that is in there (and still to be done), good job, thanks for the updates.

Yeah, the cutting out of the lens area is scary, but you've done such a good job so far that I'm sure it'll come out perfect.

That looks super cool ... and I hardly even know what's going on here.

I'm with Oogie. I have no idea what it is I am looking at, but I know that I like it!

looks great-i respect anyone that can make something from scratch with their own hands-cant wait to see the end result.

OK, here's some stuff that will start to look familiar. I got to the point that the overall shape is getting much closer and got one of the lenses roughly blocked out.

Here's the rough blank. You can see the xmetal and carbon earstems in the background, sitting on the carbon briefcase.


Profile from the top. All of the grayish cut areas will go back to a richer black once it's clearcoated.


One lens blocked out. The hole will need a lot of hand work to get to the exact size. That will be a slow process, a little at a time. You can cut stuff away, but can't put it back!



As I continue I'm starting to see some deviations from the Juliet form, so I don't think I'll have a 100% accurate reproduction, but it will be close enough to the spirit of the Juliet that I'll be ok with calling it one. :)

I'm guessing that I've got about 12-15 more hours of work to get it done. All of the remaining parts are the tricky bits, where you have to go slow. My plan is to get both lenses in place and sized correctly, and then work the outer profile to make everything symmetrical. I'm debating on whether to cut the lower orbital for the screw that tightens it up. I'd hate to mess that part up...

Wow, that's a big step forward here !
Everybody already said it, but your project is just awesome, and I can't wait to see the next step ^_^

Outstanding craftsmanship! I'm not going to repeat everyone
else's thoughts .....waiting with anticipation....Top Banana!!!!!

Just to update, I haven't forgotten about this. I've just been slammed with trying to move cross country and all that jazz, which takes up a bit of time. :)

The new carbon C6 sneak preview we've seen has me excited again and I'm going to try to do some work on these tonight.

Ah, I was wondering the other day what was happening with the project. Can't wait to see more.

Carved out a little time to work on things. It's starting to shape up into some actual glasses now!

I did all the main shaping and profiling and now need to do a LOT of hand finishing with some fine sandpapers to get a really nice and smooth finish. I want to see how they look without clearcoat, as that appears to be what Oakley did on the C6. I need to source some very tiny screws to attach the arms and do a little work on those to make sure they operate smoothly at the right angle.

I still have to do the lens holes. I keep putting that off because it's scary and I don't want to mess it up. :) I decided that I don't want to split the frame like the real Juliets, so I'm going to carve out a hole just slightly smaller than the lens, and then from the backside take a little extra out so I can snap the lens in, kind of like my Switch. I've got emerald iridium lenses to plop in there, which should look pretty cool.

Anyone have some spare earsocks to donate to the cause? I don't have any laying around.

BTW, this is really tricky.

I'm also really wondering where Oakley gets their 96 hours per pair thing on the C6.

I'm doing everything by hand and there is no way I'll even get close to 96 hours.

I can kind of understand the 20 hours of CNC. But that leaves 76 hours of handwork? Doing what? That's like two solid weeks of work for one person. With the level of technology they are using, the glasses must come off the CNC darn near perfect, nothing like the "imprecise mess" I'm working with. My friend is an engineer at a company that makes things for the military and they have similar machines, and that stuff is precise down to ridiculous tolerances. I really don't think the C6 comes off the CNC and some guy has to bust out the files and sandpaper.

Even if Oakley hand sanded everything to an obsessive level, applied the icons, fitted the lenses, etc. I really struggle to see how it could take that long.

Considering the C6 is compressed billet carbon fiber, and they are tooled from solid blocks, not wrapped and layered like this, it is easy to fathom 96 hours. There is a 5 Axis CNC I believe tooling them down piece by piece, so it could take quite a long time. 4 days isn't really much to think in terms of the precision cutting going on, plus they are also hand assembled and packaged, so there is a lot of finesse work and care put into a pair of shades that is costing the public 4k!!

In watching the video, they are doing it basically as I approached it. They might start with a bigger block, but ultimately it ends up on a curved form which they cut out the shape on. I just skipped one of their steps by forming the carbon on the curve instead of machining down to it so as not to waste so much material.

20 hours is fair for that complex machining.

I'm not knocking them, I think they are awesome and if I had the cash I'd get a pair, I just think they are stretching the truth a wee bit to make that price tag feel a bit more justified.

If anyone from Oakley wants to take me to their factory to prove me wrong, I'd happily jump on a plane. :)

Worked on this a bit more and it's starting to come together. There are a lot of details on these darn things once you start to examine them carefully.

I did an initial 1 hour or so of wet sanding and started to get the surface much close to done. With enough work I think it will look pretty good without a clearcoat, which is what the C6 appears to be.

I added the machined out area for the temple shock things (proper name is failing me at the moment) and will be able to get those in place with a little customizing. I think I will need to use a little epoxy to rebuild the slot for where the earstem attaches, as I belatedly noticed that the slot has a bit more angle to it which puts the earstem at the correct angle. One side of mine is slightly off.

I made templates for the lenses and taped those in place to get the position right and will start cutting those soon.

Nice work!

Are you still looking for some earsocks? I have an extra pair of rootbeer ones lying around if you're interested.

Mike

really cool, even if the lenses dont fit it is still a cool frame. hopefully when you snap the lens in it doesn't wear down the lip that holds them in. its probably a one shot deal.

I know a trick to help them "slide" in...Carbon is a different ball game than O Matter, but hey, worth a shot.

I could still use some earsocks. If you want to part with them for a worthy cause until I work out all the details, that would be awesome. You can send me a PM.

So what's the trick to help the lenses slide in?

I've got the outer profile of the holes traced out carefully now, so my next step is to sand those out. Probably will work on that in the next day or so. Once that is good I'll take a teeny bit out on the back and keep trying to get the lenses in. From my experience with my other glasses those lenses are pretty tough, so hopefully they will hold up to my nonstandard treatment.

Final steps will be to get the angle of the earstem attachments just right, drill the small holes and screw them in.

Do the final hand sanding and (possible) clearcoat and voila. If all goes to plan, I'll be sporting the worlds only carbon fiber Juliets in a week!

My lord Paul - this is fantastic!

Keep it up!

That is very cool, Paul. Can't wait to see the finished product as we get closer and closer. Who knows, maybe you should be open to an offer to hand them over to Oakley when all is said and done for them to use as an example of Oakley fanaticism in action ... and they could compensate you with something spiffy as well.

Hmm, that's an interesting though. How about they give me a C6 and a PitBoss? I could deal with that. :)

Oh, BTW, these are going to be *really* light. Even in their not-done form I was struck this morning by how light they are. If I took a wild guess I'd say half the weight of the xmetal version.

Argh, want to go home and work on them...

I'm questioning myself on the clear coat or not clear coat.

Is there a risk that some residual particles of carbon could get off of the frame and go in your eyes or in your skin ?

OK, I can be a bit paranoiac sometimes ...

I'm not 100% sure which route to go either. The epoxy does do a good job of holding it all together. As long as you do a careful job finishing it and sanding so that there are no edges that can catch on anything I don't think that you'd have to worry about particles. Even if the state I have it now, it's very smooth and solid. I have a knife with this treatment and it's held up fine for years now.



The primary thing the clear coat will do is make the finish darker and shiny. Uncoated, the carbon will look a bit more gray with a matte or satin finish. With a clear coat, it will go closer to black and have a bit more "shimmer" and depth.

This knife handle I did has the more "traditional" approach, with a consistent weave and clearcoat.



I think I'm going to do the careful wet sanding and leave it uncoated at first and see how it looks. I kind of like that look, it doesn't seem so, I don't know, trendy. Feels a bit more organic and not so plasticky.