How-To: Prescription Goggles

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2011/11/14 @ 6:00 am
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Longtime MAKE pal (and Volume 17 cover-guy) Jake von Slatt shows us an easy way to hack an old pair of eyeglass lenses into a set of goggles for use around the shop, or when driving through the desert in an art car with no name. Good to hear from you, Jake! Keep ‘em coming!

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6 Responses to How-To: Prescription Goggles

Anonymous on November 14th, 2011 at 9:51 am said:

Besides the fact that the fact that in many jurisdictions, using a hacked pair of prescription lenses while driving could be illegal…

Screwing with your lenses is DANGEROUS.

Even a few degrees of tilt and you’ve changed the prescription, which can screw up your eyes.
Would you hack a prescription of pills you filled from your doctor?
Then why hack the prescription lenses filled from your eye doctor!?

Just take the goggles into your opthamologist and have them fit them with proper prescription lenses.
Most will fit lenses to any frame you bring in, (and most will also do proper goggles) so they’d probably fit a pair of goggles you provide.

Besides, if you’re hacking up your old pair of glasses for this, then you probably are in need of a new pair anyways.
(Or HAVE a new pair with a new prescription, so shouldn’t even be USING the old prescription.)

Don’t hack when it comes to your eyes.
Just do it right.

Reply ↓
- Jake von Slatt on November 14th, 2011 at 11:34 am said:
  
  I did do it right.
  
  Reply ↓
Chris Glatz on November 14th, 2011 at 11:14 am said:

Well, somebody has a safety stick up his butt.

Your eyes come with a built-in alarm feature… if you’re looking through glasses that aren’t set up right, they hurt. You get headaches. You can’t see straight. So after a couple minutes of trying out your sweet new goggles, you’ll know whether or not you’ve done the job properly. Adjust! Tinker!

Besides, no eye doctor is going to build you custom mad-scientist goggles like this one. This is a fun mod. Live a little.

Reply ↓
- Anonymous on November 14th, 2011 at 12:43 pm said:
  
  Have you even asked?
  I’ve had two pairs of (decades old) vintage discontinued frames custom fitted with new lenses. I’m pretty sure shaping a lens into a CIRCLE wouldn’t be a problem for them.
  
  And you don’t ALWAYS get headaches when your eyes are under strain.
  If your prescription is even slightly too strong, your eyes will adapt but by making your vision slightly worse, and by tilting your lenses slightly forward you DO increase the strength.
  It’s the reason why eye-doctors require you to be fitted with new frames before you leave.
  Same reason they ‘fit’ you to new contacts.
  If your prescription isn’t right, you can screw up your vision (without headaches or dizzyness).
  
  But for your snide remark, I do live. My friend though, no longer can.
  So till you’re on a sand dune and YOUR friend gets run over by an idiot on a dune-buggy wearing shit shades on top of his prescription glasses, THEN you can tell me to live a little.
  Wrecking your own vision is fine. No one is going to stop you, but recommending ANYONE drive with a hacked pair of prescription glasses is reckless at best.
  
  Reply ↓
Anonymous on November 15th, 2011 at 10:21 am said:

Anyone have an idea of where to source the goggles used in this or a similar style? I’ve occasionally looked and not been able to find this style in anything but cheap black plastic.

Reply ↓
- Lorenzo Pasqual on November 15th, 2011 at 12:39 pm said:
  
  by the looks they’re welder’s glasses
  
  Reply ↓