What's in the Box? Well, Quite some time ago, more than a year in fact I saw a wonderful pair of Brass goggles crafted by mikest on http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk. You can view them here.http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikest/254623389/
They inspired me to create a pair of my own. After more than a year of design, research and construction I present to you...

The Titanium Photochromatic Variable-Aperture Spectacles.

OK, so if you've seen Mikest's goggles then you'll note some obvious similarities. They are both made from metal and leather after all. His work is the inspiration for these and as such I've borrowed from his design. I believe in giving credit where it's due. Hopefully I've come up with and added a few ideas of my own that make these unique from his. My goal was not to clone his goggles but, I did use them as a springboard for my own design.

The Idea here is how would someone from the 18th century choose to build something like this if they had access to todays's technology and materials.

Let's take a look.

The main housing and attach points for the nose and temple pieces are milled from a solid billet of Titanium alloy. I chose Titanium for several reasons. First, it's much lighter in weight than brass. This was important to me because, I wanted them to be comfortable to wear. With the leather and optical components in these, I thought they would feel like boat anchors on my face if I constructed them from brass. The surface of the Titanium is coated with a high tech super ceramic material known as Titanium Nitride. This is what gives them the gold color similar to brass. TiN (Titanium Nitride) is extremely hard, highly wear resistant and very stable so these goggles should last for several hundred years.

I also added Iris diopters inside the housing. These serve two purposes. First they look really cool. Second, they actually do improve the sharpness of vision at long distances at their smallest aperture. They do this by increasing the depth of field by limiting the aperture similar to a camera lens.

Here you can see the Iris's in action. They are adjusted independently by a slider on the top surface of each housing.

I found the box for them online. Nothing really special about it other than it's hand made and looks beautiful. I added the velvet covered foam insert myself. It gives them the feeling of a relic from another time and, is a great way to transport and present them.

I chose Photochromatic lenses and had these custom milled at an optician. They get dark out side or, in the presence of UV light but, remain clear indoors so the Iris is visible. I wanted them to be wearable in any environment, indoor or out.