How to protect the optics against break - DIY cover
In Airsoft, safety glasses are absolutely necessary to protect our eyes from getting hit with speeding bb, but there are also other things that can be easily damaged after being hit, and these are optical sights, whether they are scopes or red dots, any after being hit by a bb can be easly broken, which may turn out to be not only an unpleasant, but also a costly incident for us.
Many manufacturers responded to this problem and launched dedicated Flip-Up covers with which we can protect our optics against breaking, but unfortunately we do not always have the opportunity to use such a cover, sometimes we do not have enought RIS rail (or we do not have it at all) in front of the sight so that the cover fits, and sometimes, let's be honest, it may not look like the best on the replica. Today I will show you how I dealt with this problem myself and I hope that my idea will be useful to you.
Materials
We will need a few things to make our cover, and we start with the material from which we will make the cover itself, which is the PVC welding helmet insert. This material has several properties that interest us:
- Withstands bb impact without any problems.
- It is thin, which makes it easy to work with.
- It's relatively cheap.
Cover hit twice with BB
Such inserts can be found in good construction shops or with welding accessories, but if you have a problem finding them locally, I recommend looking for them on the Internet using the phrase "pvc welding mask protective replacement". Single lenses are very cheap, and you can even make several covers from one. In addition to the pvc glass, we will need a few tools such as:
- pencil,
- sharp scissors,
- painters tape / paper tape,
- insulating tape,
- P120 sandpaper.
Armed with all the necessary materials, we can go to work, I am not able to show you how to make lens cover for everything, but I will show you two techniques that should be enough for you to make a covers for most optics or cameras that need it.
Lens cover for scopes
Most of the scopes available on the market come in the set with closed eyepiece caps, which will make our work much easier.
Step 1
Uninstall the cap.
Step 2
Sticking the front eyepiece with painters tape.
Step 3
Trace the outer edge of the eyepiece with a pencil.
Step 4
Transfer the drawn shape onto the protective pvc glass so as to use as little material as possible.
Step 5
Use sharp scissors to cut out the drawn shape, trying to cut it on the inside of the drawn line.
Step 6
Use sandpaper to smoothen the edges.
Step 7
Dry fit.
Step 8
If everything fits, we can remove the protective foil from both sides.
Step 9
Insert the cap with protective cover on the scope and we are done.
Our scope is now protected against the impact from the front. If the cover is scratched or damaged, we can make it in the same way.
Red dots and other irregular shapes
In the case of red dot sights that do not have closed caps in the set, or their shape is irregular, we can still make a cover, the process will be mostly the same, only the assembly method may be slightly different. For example, I will make a holographic style collimator cover.
Step 1
We trace the shape.
The same as in the previous case, here also draws the shape on which the lens will rest, with the difference that one end of the tape will make the lens behind one of the planes, because at this Step it hangs in the air, and I am not able to draw it.
Step 2
We cut the cover.
As you can see, I glued the template to the pvc glass in such a way that the "empty" end of the tape is flush with the edge of the plane.
Step 3
Smooth the uneven edges with sandpaper until the pvc glass fits snugly.
Step 4
We peel off the protective films.
The pvc glass can now be attached in several ways, e.g. with double-sided tape, I will use black electrical tape.
Step 5
We mount the cover with tape.
I stick a piece of insulating tape on the edge of the pvc glass, first stick the top of the glass and then fix the sides of the glass in the same way.
Done, our red dot is now secured and the tape and the cover are almost invisible, which is an additional advantage of this method.
We can also stick round lensed with insulating tape, e.g. to such a small VictOptics red dot, just cut the tape to make it bend into a circle.
In the case of cameras that I use while playing, the cover is glued on cyanoacrylate glue, remember that this method will only work in some cases.
In this way, you can quickly and at low cost make a cover for most things used in Airsoft that are exposed to damage with the BB. Of course, the limit is your imagination, but I personally see the possibility of using the above technique to make, for example, flashlight covers, screens in walkie-talkies or clocks that are increasingly used in scenarios.
I hope that the above guide will be useful to you ;)
Author: Maniek44
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