The goggles were made from standard/cheap welding goggles with leather glued over the plastic frames. Scrap leather was glued in a tube, and fitted over the elastic band. The lenses were made using a series of punches in a metal shop. With all the talk about Brass vs Iron, I kind of hate to admit that these are actually brass covered steel. It was all I had available. The brass fastening hardware came from a catalogue. I had to electro-etch some Zinc off the stands offs. The washers were needed to space the fittings out far enough to fit. I was really happy with how the brass rods worked to hold the goggles in the correct shape. It took two tries, to get them right. The attenuators came a little later, but worked amazingly well first try. they even snap up and down with a great feel. It took three tries to get the polycarbonate lenses to glue to the brass holders. Both silicone and epoxy failed, but Gorilla Glue held great.

The glass can focus ultra-violet light while polycarbonate lenses block the U.V.-Rays. That glass is decoration only, with possible counter-productive results, substituting leather for that glass would be nice on the finger-tips while also enhancing-grip on the snow-goggles.

This alternative to leather would be rivets covering the brass sun-shield, to prevent a large flash of reflected light from entering the eyes. That irregular surface would preserve the reduced reflectivity provided by an oxidized-brass-surface, to enhance performance.

On that note, what doesn’t deteriorate over time under normal conditions? Seriously.