How to Make Your Own Steampunk Goggles

Goggles are the must-have accessory for steampunk cosplay. Like a little black dress, only awesomer. Here’s how you can make your own from a pair of cheap welding goggles.

The first step is to make that plastic look like metal. This step takes about two hours, including drying time.

Supplies:

• One pair of cheap plastic welding goggles
• One set of Rub ‘n Buff
• Disposable gloves
• Paper towels
• Q-Tips
• Two-step epoxy or Superglue

Things pictured that you’ll need after everything dries:

• Scrap leather
• Steampunk Bag of Gears
• Epoxy or Super Glue

Step 2 – Disassemble the pieces –>

The first thing you need to do is take the goggles apart. This pair is ideal, because the top screws off, and the lenses pop out. There’s a button on the side that pops out, the straps come off, and the middle chain between the eyes can be removed. Get it into as many pieces as you can. That makes it easier for applying the Rub ‘n Buff.

Step 3 – Begin adding patina –>

Ok, now you’re going to make sure your items aren’t near anything you care about. Find a well-ventilated area, and put down drop cloths, put on an apron, do whatever you need to do to keep everything neat. I suggest donning those disposable gloves right about now. Have a handy extra roll of paper towels nearby, too.

Apply the Rub ‘n Buff to the plastic goggles. I like to use different colors to give it more of a hand-crafted feel. For this pair, I started with silver on the body and Spanish copper on the piece meant to hold the lenses. The buttons on the side are gold leaf. Each color gets its own Q-tip to avoid contamination. You could also use cheap paintbrushes to apply this, but remember, anything you use will need to be thrown away.

Step 4 – A second coat –>

Add a second coat when that dries, mixing it up with more colors. You want the goggles to look like aged metal, so they need a patina. Think about the materials you want this to simulate and how they look. Well-used metals are polished on the raised portions where fingers rub against it but dull in the crevices. To achieve this look, put your dark color on first, and then put the lighter touches on after the dark color dries. Apply copper patina in splatter dabs instead of a solid layer. You could use a small sponge to do this, or try applying some and then quickly removing it using a wrinkled up paper towel.

Solid gold doesn’t corrode, but gold leaf or gold plating will show signs of wear, exposing the metal or wooden base materials. (The weight and expense make solid gold impractical, even on old time fantasy objects.) To create that look, apply a darker color or different metal as your second coat. I also like to go back with a little bit of black to add shading and depth. You can take a lot of lessons you learned from painting miniatures and apply them here. If you didn’t paint miniatures, now you know why you should have.

Step 5 – Buffing –>

Here’s some of the progress. See the lighter shade (antique gold) over the copper, black, and patina base. The gold buttons have a bit of pewter paint showing through on the edges. For good measure, I’ve painted the buckles from the straps as well.

Once everything is dry, you can polish it up (the Buff of Rub ‘n Buff), but too much buffing will make it look really shiny. That’s great for the right project. For this pair of goggles, we only want the shine on a few areas.

Once everything is dry, reassemble the pieces. Here’s the progress so far. I’ll probably go back and add another layer to a few areas, but the painting is pretty close to finished. In the next part of the tutorial, we’ll replace those very modern elastic straps with leather and put the final touches on our new goggles.

Step 6 –  Bag of gears and scrap leather –>

Get out the Bag of Gears and glue some onto the knobs on the side with two-step epoxy or superglue. What’s more steampunk than a gear that serves no apparent purpose?

Now it’s time to tackle the straps and bridge. The goggles came with an elastic strap and plastic covered metal chain bridge. That’s not terribly Victorian. I’ve got a bag of scrap leather, though you could use faux leather, canvas, or other fabric for this. I started by cutting a thick rectangle slightly larger than the existing bridge piece and notching it on either side.

Next, I flipped the leather over, rough side up, and tacked the center down using Fabri-Tac. The end result should look something like a sideways letter I.

Step 7 – Threading the leather –>

Feed the finished strap through the notches on the sides of the goggles, with the glued portion pointed toward the inside. That’s going to make your bridge, and the thicker portions of the “I” shape will hold the bridge in place. Don’t worry if it looks ugly on the inside, nobody is going to see it once you screw the dark lenses back on. If it really bothers you, you can glue it down on the inside, but this isn’t structurally necessary.

Step 8 – Final touches –>

Next, it’s time for the straps. Use the elastic strap as a template for the length and width of your leather (or canvas or faux leather, depending on what you decide to use). To hide the rough side of the leather, thread it through so that the buckles actually adjust on the inside of the goggles.

Glue the side buttons and gears back on. Double check that your Rub ‘n Buff has completely cured and that you’ve rubbed off any excess (otherwise they’ll double as practical joke goggles when you try wearing them and end up covered in silver paint). Once you’ve done that, your goggles are suitable for wearing or mounting to your favorite Victorian-style hat.

Some variations I’ve seen on this include coating the outside of the goggles with leather instead of using the Rub ‘n Buff and using mesh or screen in place of the welding shades. If you make this project, I’d love to see your results!

Happy costuming!

This post originally appeared in two parts on GeekMom:Wired.