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Another DIY - Brushed Magnesium Switch

xmetal

Oakley Enthusiast
Along with my carbon fiber one-off project, I had a Mag Switch that was in really poor shape. There was corrosion under the arms, lots of scratches on the frame and while the nose bridge was pretty solid and the lenses were scratch free, I barely ever wore them.

So thanks to the little tutorial thread on here about how to get those %$@* lenses out, I started refinishing these. The plan is that the arms and nose bridge will be gunmetal/black and the main orbitals will be hand brushed metal. I will ultimately gloss clear coat the entire thing when done to protect the metal.

I got the lenses out, pulled out the icons and took off all the rubber. I then attacked the orbitals by hand with a scotch bright pad and the black coating comes off pretty easily. This is a few shots in progress. The mag alloy actually looks gorgeous in brushed form, I think these will look sweet. I'll need to source out some new rubber for the ear stems, since you can't buy those anymore.

I'll update with more pics once this is farther along.

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Another great project here
something really new and unusual...too "easy" this kind of stuff with x-metal babies!!! :D
Well done ;)
 
yes it will need a good clear coat. I'm going to try a high quality spray first, and if that doesn't work or wears badly I'll sand it back down and have the clear cerakote put on.
 
Got these finished up for now. They turned out quite nice, certainly much better than they were before. We'll see how the consumer-grade paints hold up but now that I know how to do it I can always strip down and redo it again someday. Just need rubber for the ear stems!

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Got these finished up for now. They turned out quite nice, certainly much better than they were before. We'll see how the consumer-grade paints hold up but now that I know how to do it I can always strip down and redo it again someday. Just need rubber for the ear stems!

View attachment 176145
View attachment 176146

Two tone doesnt do it for me, but well done with overall finish........oh, and replacing those poxy lenses.
 
Two tone doesnt do it for me, but well done with overall finish........oh, and replacing those poxy lenses.

The main driver behind that was that I didn't want to kill my fingers trying to get in all the crevasses of the arms. :) Secondarily was aping the TiO2 kind of finish. Thirdly was that I don't have any two-tone frames, so I figured I'd give it a try and see if I end up liking it.

And yes those lenses are the worst, goodness gracious.
 
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