Debate over painting goggles

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

I’ve pretty much finished building my 1/72 Fokker D VII (hats off to you biplane guys and gals who do this all the time) and am now painting the pilot. Left the best for last? Maybe it was just fear. Anyway - how do most of you paint the goggles? I know they are clear glass and so should show the color of the flying helmet underneath, but somehow that just doesn’t look right even after I put drops of clear gloss on top. I’m not sure that using small drops of chrome silver or something similar would look right either.

2

I know it may not be accurate, but I usually paint the lenses of the goggles silver on my WWII era pilots, and gloss black on my modern stuff.

3

Good question. I have a couple pairs of goggles for some motorcycle riders to do, and short of removing the molded-on lenses and replacing them with something clear I wasn’t sure what to do with them.

4

Here’s an idea… Just to warn you I have never tried this myself, so you decide. What if you drilled the goggles out, like a gun barrel, and painted the inside the color of the helmet. Then, fill with Future, or whatever clear gloss you use. Maybe?

5

I think your idea is a good one. I did something similar in 1/35 for tank crew goggles. I drilled the goggles all the way through, and then carefully opened the holes with a sharp no.11 blade until I had just the frame remaining. I then created some lenes using drops of super glue. After sanding and polishing, and coating with Future, the lens were surpringly transparent, and look a world better than painted plastic.

6

RadMax8 your method works fine and as a bit of additional help…WWI aviation goggles were clear and tinted green as well.

7

Well, CA was originally intended for making and alternative to glass on canopys, so why not!

A scientist was working on developing a light, clear, canopy material for jets, the machinery they used were essentially two glass plates (extremely expensive!!!) compressed together, the scientist would then test its clarity, but when the man went to remove the two glass plates, they were stuck! and I mean stuck stuck. So came the birth of cyanoacrylate as glue!