1/1
 
 
Title
Topic
Date
Start
End
Count
Comment
o-xide
Full Throttle @ 102 mph
Nov 26, 2004 6:27 AM
A poor quality picture from the Spectrum taken years ago










Cal Fong (o-xide - 11/25/2004 7:27:41 PM)
------------------------------------------------------------
eddyc
Eddy C
Nov 26, 2004 8:05 AM
Neat! What are we looking at in the bottom left side of the top pictures?

Ed Chiu (eddyc - 11/26/2004 12:05:39 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
o-xide
Full Throttle @ 102 mph
Nov 26, 2004 8:11 AM
I believe these are the initial molding broken into parts...not really sure. It's been awhile.

Cal Fong (o-xide - 11/25/2004 9:11:33 PM)
------------------------------------------------------------
JL
Ken J
Nov 26, 2004 9:41 AM
I'm not really the X-Metal expert but i heard that every mould is destroyed after use which is why every X-metal is unique. Someone can probably fill me in.

James Lenz (JL - 11/26/2004 1:41:47 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
SCOOBY
Roger Byrne
Nov 26, 2004 12:28 PM
Not going into the full process, but yes every mould has to be broken with a big sledgehammer to get the X metal parts out......

Roger Byrne (SCOOBY - 11/26/2004 9:28:22 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
ford
Ford .
Nov 26, 2004 4:01 PM
Can you go into the whole process?

Sounds really interesting.

Andrew Ford (ford - 11/26/2004 8:01:01 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
O.T.T.
James brown
Nov 26, 2004 5:01 PM
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)
------------------------------------------------------------
Dann
Dann Thombs
Nov 26, 2004 5:28 PM
Yeah basically the final mold is broken. So a master mold is filled to make a wax scupting, which then acts as an inverse mold to make a new mold, which is then filled with X-Metal to make the final product. It's actually a very old process. Same way hand crafted silver objects are made.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 11/26/2004 9:28:11 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
eddyc
Eddy C
Nov 26, 2004 5:31 PM
If I'm not mistaken, this process is known as investment casting.

Ed Chiu (eddyc - 11/26/2004 9:31:43 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
Dann
Dann Thombs
Nov 26, 2004 5:35 PM
Yep, that's the name. There's a silver company down here in Newport that still make their peices this way.

http://www.breakell.com/

Gotta love the Newport pineapple/fish/anchor snowflake:
http://www.breakell.com/detail.aspx?ID=442
Only here.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 11/26/2004 9:35:27 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
BrianJ1888
Brian Johnson
Nov 26, 2004 8:54 PM
nuts. though even a "hindenberg" scenario wouldn't hurt the x-metal.

the whole process doesn't really seem that high-tech. but the speed and tollereances with which it's done is pretty extraoridinary. Oakley needs to do a piece that's entirely machined. just start with a chunk of metal and start carving. Or maybe that's how to make a Hatchet.

Brian Johnson (BrianJ1888 - 11/26/2004 12:54:30 PM)
------------------------------------------------------------
kingphilbert
Philip Barket
Nov 26, 2004 9:42 PM
This is all real cool, but I am more interested in that weird looking frome in the top left of the photos. And early prototupe?

Phil Barket (kingphilbert - 11/26/2004 1:42:57 PM)
------------------------------------------------------------
EastCoast
E C
Nov 26, 2004 10:50 PM
Top left? Looks like a Juliet to me minus the earsocks. The orbitals are squared off up top more though.

E C (EastCoast - 11/26/2004 4:20:54 PM)
------------------------------------------------------------
ford
Ford .
Nov 27, 2004 12:05 PM
It looks like what Oakley now have as a prescription frame.

Cosine or whatever they're called. The retro girly ones.

Andrew Ford (ford - 11/27/2004 4:05:56 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
kingphilbert
Philip Barket
Nov 27, 2004 8:13 PM
Not quite like Sine or Cosine. I do like the boxed shape they have. Almost like an altered Four with curved lenses.

If you look close you can see the lug port on the under side of the lens in the shadow. Juliet with Squared orbitals and center attached earstems. I think it looks nice whatever it is.

Phil Barket (kingphilbert - 11/27/2004 12:13:51 PM)
------------------------------------------------------------
kingphilbert
Philip Barket
Nov 29, 2004 4:53 PM
I just read that Wired article "Supreme O" for the first time. One little thing in it bothers me. They state the Eye Jacket to have been released in 1991.

By 1991, Jannard and his approximately 200-person company released the dual-lens, wraparound-style Eye Jacket.

1991? I bought my first pair of Eye Jackets as soon as they hit the stores when only four color were available and it was, memory serves, in late 1994, early 1995. The Sub Zero wasn't even out in 1991.

Is the article wrong or did the Eyejacket slip out an not get noticed for a few years. In 1991 Oakley wasn't even using the Icon over Srtech logo yet that the Eye Jacket featured.

Phil Barket (kingphilbert - 11/29/2004 8:53:27 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
eddyc
Eddy C
Nov 29, 2004 5:18 PM
Phil, I don't remember Eye Jackets being out in '91, either. I got my first pair in '96, and they were still relatively new then.

Ed Chiu (eddyc - 11/29/2004 9:18:35 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
Dann
Dann Thombs
Nov 29, 2004 5:18 PM
I wouldn't take an article's info as law. Most reporters have to pull a story together, and then move on, so facts can tend to get tainted.

Dann Thombs (Dann - 11/29/2004 9:18:50 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
kingphilbert
Philip Barket
Nov 29, 2004 5:29 PM
Nor would I. It would just be nice if his facts were correct. The article was good otherwise.

Phil Barket (kingphilbert - 11/29/2004 9:29:07 AM)
------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
1/1
 
 

O-Review Logo & Design
© 2004-2024 Atom Crown Design and DCJ Productions.
Product Images, Logos and Artwork © 1975-2024 Oakley Inc.
All personal photos © 2004-2024 by their owners...or Rick.