Making your own mask

[Randy Quimpo]

Has anyone here made his own mask? If you have, can you share some tips on how you did it?

I am interested in building a low-volume mask with prescription lenses in them, and I think it is possible to mold silicone into the necessary shape, but I don't know more than that.

[Cragrat]

I haven't made my own mask but I though about how I might do it. I'd cast it using a mold of the mask you want to build.
Basically, take a head casting, design the mask sans glass out of what ever material (clay, playdo, etc) onto the head cast. Take a casting of that and you'll have a mold of the mask you can pour your silicon into to make the final product. This is a rather simplified example (and a run on sentence) but it isn't that difficult to do though very time consuming. If you use your own head casting as the master you could even customize the fit.

For more casting information you can check a really good news group on Yahoo called, "Casting" (casting@yahoogroups.com) . Very helpful with quality professional advice.

Anyway, just a idea on how I'd go about it.

[Randy Quimpo]

Thanks for the info, Cragrat.

I have read up on casting techniques, and this seems about right. My idea is to make an extremely low-volume mask that holds prescription lenses - you've provided the method to make the silicone part, but have you got any idea on how to approach the molding of the plastic frame? Or better yet, is there such a thing as an all-silicone mask? I am imagining that this is what the frameless masks are like - but I have never seen those before so I have no idea how they hold the glass in place.

[Cragrat]

I suppose you could cast the plastic parts as well.

I'm not familiar with frameless masks so I can't comment on their construction. I imagine with out a stiffener in the silicone around the lenses they would pop out any time you equalised :-)