How to make wooden sunglasses // Woodworking Project | I Like To Make Stuff

Hey, I'm Bob and I like to make stuff. Today, I'm going to make some wooden sunglasses. Most of the time, I wear these sunglasses, and I wear them enough that the lenses often get scratched. I found a while back that you can buy replacement lenses on Amazon for $13 or $14, and you can get them in a bunch of different colors and different types, but they all fit those glasses. These lenses just pop right into the frames, and ever since I started getting these, I thought it would be really fun to make my own frames for these to go into. A couple of years ago, Steve Carmichael made a pair of wooden sunglasses on YouTube. He's a really great guy, and it's a fantastic video. I'll have it linked down in the description. So I went back and watched his video to see exactly how he did it, and in the process of that, I found several other videos that are also making wooden sunglasses, which is encouraging because I found that there are a lot of different ways to make them. I'm going to give it a shot, and it's probably a very similar method to what other people have done, but I'll link several of those videos down in the description in case you want to see some different options for how to make these. When Steve made his glasses, he sandwiched three pieces of veneer that he cut down on the bandsaw. So mine's going to be really similar to his, except that I'm going to use this veneer left over from a skateboard build. This stuff is a little bit thicker than some of the veneers that you might find, so it really just depends on how thick you want your glasses to be, how thick the veneer is, that'll help you figure out how many sheets of veneer to get. But for now, I think I'm going to use three layers. I think that should work pretty well and make them not too thick. I cut down a piece of 2x4 that was the same width as the veneer that I was using. The size here doesn't really matter. On that 2x4, I found the center on the top of it and then used that as a reference point to lay out my frames that I was tracing. I held them upright and traced a general shape on the outside of them to make sure that I got as many of the curves and details as I could. Then, I drew a line roughly down the center of that all the way from edge to edge. Along that line, I used the bandsaw to cut this piece in half. This is going to act as a form to glue our veneers together. I put each one of these veneers inside the form and then traced the outside so that I could cut them down to length. The more material there is, the harder it will be to bend and shape to the form. So you want to get rid of anything you don't need. I also alternated the grain between these pieces. Just like when you're making a skateboard, alternating the grain will make it stronger once it's glued together. That's how plywood is made. On one of these pieces, I found the center with a ruler and then used that as a reference point to trace the outside of the frames. After the outside was traced, I just popped out the lenses. They come out really easily. Then I traced the inside openings. From here, I just had to drill a hole in the center of these openings and then used the scroll saw to cut these out. I've only used a scroll saw once or twice in my life, and when I was doing this, I wondered why I don't use it more often. It's a really easy to manage tool and it's something that would be safe enough for even my kids to use with some supervision. It was really great for getting on the inside of these curves just a hair on the inside of the line that I'd drawn. I put my Dremel tool in my vise with a sanding drum on it and then used this as a spindle sander to clean up the inside edge. This worked way better than I expected. I laid this piece over the lenses and once I was happy with their layout and fit, I traced the openings onto the center piece of veneer. I did the same thing on the back panel as well, and notice all three of these veneers are referenced in the top left corner. If I line that corner up, everything will line up within them. On the center veneer, I drew a line a little bit outside the initial line that I'd drawn and then cut that out on the scroll saw. That makes it so that the center veneer actually has larger holes than the two on the outside. This will make a pocket for the lenses to fit in. On the back panel, I cut out the holes with the scroll saw in the exact same way and then used the Dremel again to clean up these lines. This makes it really easy to get a nice smooth curve, even if you can't do that on the scroll saw. Once I laid all of the pieces together, I realized that the lenses were a little bit too big for the openings that I'd made. So I laid them down backwards, traced the outside of the lens, and then took it to the Dremel again. I sanded so that I had an even gap all the way around, close, but not to that line. Then it was time to put it all in the form, and to do this, I just covered the inside of my form with packing tape. This will stop it from getting glued together. I covered each one of the veneers with a lot of glue, tried to cover all the surface area, and then lined up in that top left corner that I referenced earlier. I got all three of these panels put together, and then put it on the inside of my form. The center point is really important here, and since I marked that on the form, I also marked it on the veneers. Once I had all three of those, I could line those lines up with the form, and make sure that everything was centered. I added some clamps, and readjusted a little bit to make sure that everything stayed centered as I clamped it down. If you don't know, you can never have too many clamps. In fact, sometimes, you just need clamps for the sake of clamps. To make the ear pieces, I used a solid piece of maple. I figured that would be a lot stronger, and it would hold the curve that they needed better. From the top, I traced the overall curve of each one of the side pieces, and then cut out that general shape on the bandsaw. Notice, this is way taller than it needs to be, and that's because I'm going to get both of these pieces out of one curved cut. Once I got the general shape cut out, I took it to the belt sander to even it out, and remove any of the burn marks. The belt sander is really great for flattening surfaces, and getting a nice curve across a long distance. With it relatively smooth, I laid out the ear pieces, and traced their outline. Then I cut these pieces out with a scroll saw, but here's an important note. Anywhere a piece of wood touches the blade on a scroll saw, it needs to be flat against the table. With a curved piece like this, you'll just have to manually change the angle of the wood as you push it through the blade. It's not hard to do, it's just something to be aware of. These pieces are going to be pretty small, so I cut the outsides of these off first, so that the piece I was dealing with was larger. Eventually I had to cut it down to get both of the ear pieces out, and I used a pencil to keep my fingers away from the blade. Back on the belt sander, I did some final shaping to these to get a nice curve both on the inside and on the outside. Then I used a foam sanding block just to smooth over all the edges and get a nice finished surface. After a couple of hours, I took apart the form, and pulled out the sunglass lamination. The glue on the inside of this wasn't quite dry, so it made it a lot easier to scrape out of the opening. This is where the lenses are going to go, so it has to be inside a little bit. If that glue was dry in that little inside, it would be much, much harder to get out. After I got it pretty clear, I took this to the scroll saw, and cut out the final shape. I was cutting a little bit closer to the line than I should have. I probably should have stayed a little bit further from the line, so I had more room to sand back when I got to the dremel. The shape ended up just fine, but having a little bit extra to sand away is always a good idea. They were actually starting to look like a pair of sunglasses, which was really exciting. And after that, there was a whole lot of sanding. You've heard me talk about Casper before, and that's because they're awesome. I continue to work with Casper as a sponsor for my videos, because I really believe in their product. We love our mattress, we've been sleeping on it for a really long time now, and every time I go on a trip, I'm always anxious to get home because it's so comfortable. They're made right here in the U.S., and you get free shipping and free returns in the U.S. and Canada. You get to sleep on it for 100 nights in your house, and if you don't like it for any reason, they will come and get it and take it away. When you support companies like Casper, they support people like me, and that's really awesome, and I'm grateful to Casper for sponsoring this video. Go check them out at casper.com slash make. Use the code make, and you get $50 off your first mattress. It took a little bit more shaping to get both of the ear pieces symmetrical, but after I was happy with those, it was time to figure out how to attach them to the frames. I set the two pieces together and traced their outline on each other. Then I drew some lines across each piece to make sure that the cuts would line up with each other. It's really important here to remember to cut on the inside of one line and on the outside of another line. I made a little zero clearance insert for my scroll saw since I was making such a small cut, and then when I cut out these pieces, I made sure to cut less than I thought I needed. You can always cut away more if you need to, but you can't put it back. It's really important that these fit snugly together, so I was really careful to cut on the correct side of the line. Once I had these cutouts done on both sides, I tested fitting them together. After I was positive that they would fit together at a 90 degree angle, I started into the shaping, and this is to cut away enough material in the right places to let them fold. This was kind of tricky and really just trial and error, but eventually, after quite a bit of sanding and shaping on both pieces, I got them to fit together and hinge pretty well. I used an X-Acto knife to score out areas that I wanted to remove so that I didn't remove too much material. I used an end mill on my Dremel to cut out a little inset so that the piece would have somewhere to go. Again, this was trial and error, but eventually I was pretty happy with how everything fit together and hinged. The final thing was to actually put a screw on it and see if the hinge would work correctly. To do that, I found some old Patreon sunglasses, thanks Patreon, and pulled the screws out of the corners. I didn't have a small enough drill bit for this hole, but I did have a bit for my CNC machine, so I chucked that up in the drill. Using a countersink bit, I started a little place for the drill bit to fit inside so that it wouldn't wander. This is a really tiny bit, and it can go very wrong if you don't drill it in the right place. I drilled through both pieces of the frame, then set the earpiece in place and drilled through it. That way, I was sure that all three of the holes would line up. I followed the same process for the other side of the glasses, and to my surprise, this actually worked out really well. I used a really tiny screwdriver to drive in the screw to hold the earpiece in place, but I realized that the head of the screw was still on top of the frames. So I pulled the screw back out and then used a drill bit that was just a little bit bigger to make a countersink down in the top of the frames. This allows the head of the screw to sit flush with the top of the sunglasses. This countersink has to be really shallow as well. I put both of the screws in, attaching both of the earpieces, and then assembly was done. I took them outside and added a couple of coats of spray lacquer, with a light sanding in between. Anytime you use spray lacquer, it raises the grain, so a light sanding will make the next coat really smooth. The lacquer dried after just a few minutes, and then I had to pop in the lenses. You have to bend them quite a bit to get them in there, and it feels like they're going to break, but it actually went pretty well. Then, they were done. Look at that. I made a pair of sunglasses. These actually turned out way better than I thought they would. I honestly didn't think that the hinge would work this way, and it's surprisingly strong. These are obviously not going to be as strong as the plastic glasses which are manufactured and a little bit bendy. They have a different type of hinge, but the hinge on this is way stronger than I thought it would be, and I think these are actually going to last longer than I expected. And the best thing is that this took me an afternoon to make, so if these do break for whatever reason, I could make another pair in just a day. If you plan on making some of these sunglasses, there's a couple of things that you might want to keep in mind. The form that I made to match the old ones ended up not being quite enough curve, and you can see that mine are a little bit flatter than the ones I was mimicking. So when you're making that form, you might want to exaggerate that curve just a little bit. These hinge points actually do work pretty well. They expand so my head can fit in there. They're a little bit loose that way, and they do fold down to a point, but they don't go all the way. I think that can be fixed by removing some more material around the hinge, but I didn't want to take away too much because I didn't want it to get too weak. So there's some experimentation that can happen right there to get these to close better. But for me, I'm not going to be rough with these. I don't really care that they don't fold down all the way because I don't have to fit them into a case, but keep that in mind. If that's important to you, you're going to have to work on these corners to make that happen. Another little thing that I noticed is that when I was popping these lenses in, they ended up fitting pretty well, but I had to bend them quite a bit. The color on the outside of these lenses is a separate coating, and that coating started to chip up from the edges a little bit when I was trying to force it in. Luckily, you can't really see any of it. It's all inside the frame, but just be aware that that coating will come off if you're too rough around the edges. Typically, I don't actually like to go back and make projects a second time, but I am interested to do another pair of these to see what else I can add to the shape. I almost think it would be worthwhile to add a fourth layer of veneer. That way, you would have enough material on the front face that you could actually carve some of it away and get the curves that would match the original glasses. Overall, I'm very happy with them as a first try, and I'm actually not ashamed to wear them out of the house. So, I hope that you like this one. Let me know what you think about it down in the comments, and don't forget to check out the links to all the other sunglass videos that I was talking about. They'll be in the description. You can find several other ways to do this. I've got lots of other videos that you might be interested in, so be sure to check those out, and don't forget to subscribe. That's it for this one, guys. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.