Came across this article about a year and a half ago at:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.12/oakley_pr.html
Several dozen of the waxy sunglasses parts are attached to a 2-foot plastic tree. The entire assembly is dipped into a series of tubs containing particles and polymers that ultimately harden into ceramic coatings. "Now comes the climax," says Reyes. We walk into a dark, industrial workspace where men wear silvery fire-retardant suits and welding masks. They're milling around in front of giant furnaces, concrete bunkers, and enormous steam machines.
The grit-encrusted trees get an 800-degree-Fahrenheit steam bath, which melts the waxy sunglasses parts inside and frees the resulting green goop through gates in the trees. What's left is a series of hollow ceramic molds. The tree is set in a gigantic steel cylinder behind 16-inch-thick concrete walls. Once the vessel is clamped shut, the silver-suited men back off, we retreat into a windowed bunker, and red lights begin to flash. Smoke spews from behind the wall as all the air is sucked out of the vessel. (If the liquid X Metal cooking inside comes in contact with water, there will be a "Hindenburg scenario," offers Reyes.) An attendant in a beret moves a joystick. On a black-and-white TV monitor we watch a 6-inch-thick cylinder of metal get melted by an electric arc.
"Four hundred fifty thousand watts of power!" exclaims Reyes. On the screen we watch the 4,600-degree alloy pour into a funnel feeding the gates that channel X Metal into the molds. When the tree comes out of the cylinder, it's white-hot.
The process is far from over. After computer-controlled drilling, belt sanding, and a temple-by-temple inspection for air bubbles on a $100,000 real-time X-ray machine, the lenses are popped in and the finished products are boxed up. About 70 employees at the X Metal facility put out 7,000 to 10,000 pairs of sunglasses a month, which is slow. (Some low-end, offshore sunglasses factories produce as much in two days.)
After reading this I knew I had to have a pair. (something which I only managed about a month ago.)
X-metal ruby iridium for £140 because the place was shutting down. Just waiting now on a friend coming back from the states with the x-metal soft vault.
I can remember being in Germany in 2001 and seeing a guy with the exact same combo and cursing him upside down wondering where he got the money. Hope no one does that to me
william brown (O.T.T. - 11/26/2004 2:01:18 PM)
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