Photographer to the stars Matt Hoyle, wearing his Airframes with Mr Jack Black!
Inspiration to Realization
Here is a great example of a BEFORE and AFTER. Rosco was asked if he could create a pair of sunglasses like the hand-drawn picture that was scribbled onto paper in the middle of the night. Rosco always being up for a challenge, got a bunch of measurments and selfies to use to modify his Box Kite design. Red anodised carbon fibre make these bling with the mirror polarised lenses.
Airframes Forevermore
I am incredibly honored to blog that a pair of Airframes has 'made it'. Have a sqiz at the picture below and you will see Brian Ritchie of the Violent Femmes wearing his fully customized, one of a kind specs on the back cover of their newest album titles "Happy New Year"! Check the album. its awesome!
"Inspired"
"Inspired" Is the 1 word which Matt Hoyle emailed back to me when I mentioned to him an idea I had for his custom made pair of Airframes. Instead of just engraving the arms with a camera silhouette, I came up with the idea of making the end of the arms little camera's instead!
Airframes - Each Pair Unique.
Golden Oldies
Tigermoth Mk1 in 24ct Gold!
These are actually the first pair of wooden sunglasses that I ever made! They were a present for my wife, but she didn't wear them after I made her a pair of Sea Vixens...
Now they have been stripped of their original lacquer coating, and veneered with 24ct gold!
AIRFRAMES 50th pair!
Last entry was the 1st pair, here is the 50th! An incredable amount of work has gone into getting to this point. Thankyou to my wife for her support, help and understanding. Wooooooo!
These are Aviator Mk1's laminated in a carbon fiber composite reinforcement with Iridium lenses.
Aviator Mk1 with black and white carbon and Iridium lenses.
AIRFRAMES DIY Business Card
Make your very own AIRFRAMES! or maybe have a pair made for you... :)
Billet-Cut Tigermoths!
Here is the first pair that I ever made. The lenses I pushed out of a cheap pair of sunnies, and designed the glasses to fit the lenses! Tricky. The gracious boys from Holloway gave me some hinges to try and there you go! Birthday present for Mrs Batten!
p.s. I ended up getting proper lenses made for them:)
Click to see the different pics.
'Billet-Cut' look discovered with bionic man!
This is when I discovered the Billet-Cut look that is unique to Airframes. I have a neighbor who is training for the Paralympics. He asked me if I could design and make an adapter for his prosthetic leg, so he could join his leg directly to the pedal of his racing pushbike, instead of having to use a prosthetic foot and cycling shoe.
Click to see the pics.
Wooden clocks sidetrack
After making the CNC machine, I got a bit sidetracked with making weight driven, pendulum regulated clocks. The first one that I made was for my baby boy's first birthday present. This is where I discovered aircraft grade ply which I use to make Airframes. The super thin timber layers running in opposing directions and the fine grain is needed for strength in the small teeth of the gears. The Aircraft grade ply used here is a 5mm 10 ply...in the 5mm there are 10 layers of wood and 9 layers of glue!
Click to see the pics.
DIY 3 axis CNC
Next thing I wanted to do, was design and build high speed aircraft for racing. This involved having to design and build my own 3 axis CNC machine! The machine was used to cut molds for carbon fiber aircraft wings and fuselages. I needed a lot of money to buy one of these machines, so as usual...Necessity is the mother of invention. The machine is still used to fashion the 'billet cut' look from a solid billet of laminated timber ply's. It is impossible to get the consistent banding look in the wood by shaping it by hand.
Click to see the pics.
Start or Airframes
I guess this is where Airframes started...I taught myself CAD, so I could design model aircraft, laser cut the parts and construct my own designs. At the time I also did a lot of learning about aerodynamics. This CAD design is of a YAK-54 with approx 1 metre wingspan. This aircraft is a high performance aerobatic aircraft. This model flew amazingly! link
click to see the pics.
