Dust-Goggles - DSC

© This somewhat instructional page was made by Tim Elverston. I have decided to add to this page after all the interest it has garnered. This page has been featured on BoingBoing, Make and Gizmodo too. These goggles are essentially a prototype. They came out extremely well for a first go. Some modifications that I may add on future versions include vents which have a knitted fabric filter in place. I have ordered some more leather and I will definitely be making some other versions of these. I already have plans to make a future version.

Notes about the safety of this design. Due to some comments on the sites that picked this up, I will say that I do not endorse the safety of these goggles. This of course should make little difference since I'm not selling them. But, if you plan to build a pair, give some thought to the safety of the lenses you choose. I feel extremely good about these lenses and their relative safety - or else hey, I wouldn't have used them. However, it has been brought up by multiple concerned individuals that they may not be entirely safe.

These do have a few things going in their favor. One is they are quite thick, at about 2.8mm, which for their diameter is substantial. The second thing they have in their favor is they were never installed. I used the halogen light set in another project and just never used these lenses thus they have never been heated, so whatever tempering they had in China is still the same as it was from the factory. They are also soft-mounted in the leather and the edges are protected. Tempered glass has a well-known vulnerability at the edges, and these are quite protected there. Whatever might hit them at any angle would deform the leather instead of transferring a lot of the force to the lens.

These goggles are not necessarily designed to be used in a high-impact sport, they are just to keep dust out and have great visual clarity while doing it. However, I believe they would easily stand up to some really insane abuse and I think they would fare very well in a high-impact environment.

Any eyewear that uses glass uses tempered glass - the only difference is that they are tested with a ball bearing drop test to see if there is an error in the tempering process - but it's still just tempered glass. I dislike looking through plastic, and with the dust in the desert plastic scratches up quickly if you are not ultra-careful with it. True safety goggles all use plastic lenses, and hey, maybe plastic is a much smarter choice. My personal preference is that I can't stand plastic lenses for eyewear.

Dust Goggles | Tim Elverston design and process