Introduction: Steampunk Goggles Iris With Interchangable Lenses

About: Happily married, self employed, full wood shop, some metal work as well as electronics, antique collector.

I built these for the shop bot challenge if you like them please vote!
From the start I would like to acknowledge Gogglerman for his exceptional work it was the basis for my desire to make these.
The whole process took at least 4 weeks at about 6 hours a day, I will not attempt to show all the work, but hope to explain how I made the super thin Iris in the goggles, the final product has an additional lens and filter which was not needed if you only wanted an Iris pair of glasses.

Step 1: The Iris Construction

These shots show me thinking through the way to set up a thin iris, there are two rings one inside the other, as the outer turns it pushes the posts on the bottom of the shutters. The outer ring must have elongated holes because the pivot points move slightly away from the outside edge as the shutter closes.

I did not use an eight shutter design as I tried in the cardboard test model.

the pictures are proof of concept they are straight in the picture but will end up as circular in the finished product.
you can see from those pics the iris need only be 3 layers of metal thick. about 1/4 inch including the pivot posts.

Step 2: Iris Set Up

These show me cutting out the relief areas in the inner ring made of aluminum the outer is copper.

The second picture shows how it works the rest is just getting a good fit and making the case to hold it all.

The last picture is of a degree checker, I got tired of trying to use dividers to figure out points on the circumference,
if you notice there are six holes in this peice the iris I used in this project are actually rejects from the real goggles I should have done next month.

Step 3: More of the Process..

Lay out cut out, the second pic is the knob before then installed, stick the plug in a drill and shape it with a file.
You can see the half washers I soldered to the shutter posts to keep them in place, also look and see the small brass shims soldered to the outer coper ring to keep the action tight, they remove all slop in the copper slots I cut.
In this set up you get no room for lose tolerances the sheves will wander all over if tolerances are kept very tight.

Step 4: Still Here?

I made the sides by stacking tubing cut at a bevel the rest is self explainatory.
The larger lens I took off because I did not like it, (another 3 hours of work)
The top one is a tube to hold the ear peice, the 3 lowers are solid wire.
The lens assembly is getting a back cover, half is rough sanded the other is just after soldering.

Step 5: Final Photos

Just some different angles to show I'm not hiding stuff.

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