Some of you way be aware of my little project, but I'm nearly done with my custom, one-off, carbon Juliets. You can read through the thread in the Projects section for all the details of how I did this.

The clearcoat is barely dry and I'm already thinking of how I'll do the next ones. :)

Read my thoughts here, if you so desire: http://www.interarchitect.com/ia/?p=24

Congrats on the glasses and thanks for documenting it for us. I say it's definitely a classic thread. Can't wait to see what refinements you put into play for the second pair.

oh man, turning out nice. very interesting

Now that is what i call talent & dedication. Nice work.

Tremendous work Paul - congrats!

Now you gonna start teasing us as you're working on the 2nd pair?

What's it gonna be?

A Carbon PitBoss??? Overthetop?

What ?!
An other project launch ? Crazy boy, what are you going to do now ?

brilliant job-are you taking orders lol!

Thanks for the comments all. I'm glad I could share! It's really fun to make something on your own.

Not taking orders yet, as more than 1 order would put me over capacity. :)

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the next ones. I have to construct them around a set of lenses I can buy so I'm thinking of going with a slightly squarer lens on the next one, as I don't really have any pairs of Oakleys that are of the square variety.

I was thinking that I might go with a Ruby lens from the Fives Squared. Those look basic enough that I could do a variety of things with them.

Amazing, amazing, amazing. I'm really interested in doing some CF projects myself - how did you get into it? Using pre-preg, or wet layup? What did you use for pressure? Any good resources you can point to for beginners?

Airborne,

I got into it doing very simple, flat things, like knife handles. There's actually not much info online that I ever found, so most of it was by trial and error. In some cases the basics of fiberglass construction can be applied. (actually, I did use this page for some general concepts: http://www.rollordrown.com/kayak/gstick.html)

I use raw fabric from ebay and West Systems epoxy from a Marine supply store. Prepreg stuff is great, but you need vacuum pressure and ovens, which I don't have access to.

It's not too hard to do basic shapes. If you are doing flat things, get a piece of plexiglass, cut out your layers of fabric, and wet out each piece as you lay them together. Press down hard with your hands, or use a metal roller, and then I usually put another flat object on top and apply weight via a heavy object. Pretty primitive, really.

As you'll see in the details thread, I built a mold to wrap the carbon too but pretty much did the same process.

After you have the big block o' carbon, it's just a matter of cutting, sanding, forming and polishing. The dust is nasty, so you'll want a mask and wear gloves and long sleeves. I made the mistake of doing some parts of this project without gloves and paid for it with stinging invisible particles for a few days.

The hardest part with all of this is the quality of the finish. It's really hard to get a perfect blemish free gloss surface.

I'd be happy to share tips if anyone has specific questions.

(on separate note, I just noticed that a pic of me is in the footer. that was an odd moment of recognition :)

nice....

http://www.carbonfibergear.com/when-vicious-obsessions-collide/

Yeah great blog!

yep, Dave at carbonfibergear picked it up over there and will post up the step by step part later. He thought it was pretty neato.

I love that site. :)

Oh, I had some time to jot down some ideas and came up with this so far. Trying to mix some different design cues and build them around the Five lenses.

We've got a little of the "facets" from the Pit Boss, what I will call "ledges" that will be somewhat sharply defined areas below the lens and some interesting contours. I want to do the icon on the arms by machining out a channel and then setting in the center to give it a reversed-out feel. I also want the arms to be thicker and full carbon so you can clearly see what they are made of. Might just apply something to the back to help them stick to the head better.

I'd guess that the final product will look quite different, as I tend to make things up as I go along, but this is the concept, anyways. :)



Anyone have any thoughts for a name? I was thinking "Deviate."

I don't know what a good name for it would be, but the word "Kato" keeps coming to my mind. The design makes it look very much like a super hero eye mask (like Kato, Spirit, Green Lantern, etc.), which would be very cool. It will be interesting to see how the final product turns out. Good luck!

Oak,
When I saw the first pictures of the Pit Boss, I immediately thought of super hero masks as well. Strangely though, I first thought of the Incredibles. :D

Mike

I saw Oakley actually posted this on their official Twitter account. Great job on those!