Announcing DIY Steampunk Goggle Kits Now for Sale

Hi everyone!  I'm very excited to officially announce a new product I have for sale.  I've been working on this for a while now and debuted it at Comicpalooza.  They are now for sale in my etsy shop: DIY Steampunk Goggle Kits!

Goggles are one of the most popular steampunk accessories.  Real leather and metal goggles can be exquisite works of art and they can also be outside an affordable price range for many people. They are also some of the most difficult to make yourself.  Especially if you want goggles made from real metal and leather, their construction can be intimidating for many people who aren't experienced with these materials.  You can find various tutorials online that will show you different methods of construction, but they require finding very specific materials and using heavy power tools.

So I had the idea to make it easier to construct your own goggles.  My kit comes with all the materials you need to make a pair of genuine leather and metal goggles.  The metal parts are constructed from chrome-plated brass plumbing couplers, which aren't the easiest thing to find, especially for a reasonable price.  More importantly, we've done the difficult work of cutting the couplers to shape to make angled eye cups, and pre-drilling all the necessary holes.   We've also cut and shaped the acrylic lenses to fit these pieces perfectly.

In addition to all the necessary materials, the kit includes detailed step-by-step instructions on their construction, with full-color photos of each step.  These are of similar quality to the instructions that come with my sewing patterns, which have received some very nice praise.

Every effort was made to make this kit as complete as possible, down to including a tube of E6000 glue with each one.  There are a few tools which are required or recommended to help with the construction and they are: scissors or utility knife or rotary cutter, pencil, ruler, and rotary punch or hole punch or awl.  A screwdriver may be useful in tightening the hardware fully.

As mentioned all the metal parts are chrome-plated.  Solid brass pieces are becoming more and more difficult to come by, and are at least three times more expensive than chrome ones, so I opted not to include them for cost reasons.  The brass colored goggles in the photos are very convincingly painted with Liquid Leaf paint in "Brass".

My hope with this kit is that it can function as an introduction to steampunk crafting for those a little wary of starting a project like this on their own.  I also hope people can personalize these goggles to their own taste by adding different paints, metal parts such as filigree or gears, accessories such as eye loops, and even stamped designs on the leather.   They can also be custom fitting to the wearers head size or hat.

I've been very excited to finally debut this idea that struck me one day a couple of months ago.  I'm looking forward to feedback and hopefully to seeing some finished goggles incorporated into your outfits!

The Steam Ingenious DIY Goggle Kit, available at my Etsy Shop.