These are new parts required for my beam-beak eye milling (which as its own page here). After a Shocker body is milled and prepared for the eye install, a new left-side eye cover is necessary to cover the components. For simplicity I prefer to mirror the Shocker body the same as the stock Vision side, and create a new eye cover similar to the stock ones. These new eye covers are slightly altered to make it a little easier to install wired eyes, but they're mostly the same.
The milling program is such that the part's features (notches, holes, etc) are milled into the material block first. Once all those features are complete, a cutter follows the outside shade of the eye cover, which then falls out from the material. This cutting method produces some leftover metal present when the parts break free, so some small post-machining cleanup work is required (below).
To remove the leftover material, I use a vertical belt sander to hand-grind the covers to their final shape. The factory eye covers are milled in a similar way to this, except they're re-inserted into the CNC for a secondary program which removes the leftover material automatically. I don't do this since I find it to be unnecessarially time-consuming compared to using a sander. (it's not "PRECISION"....but it doesn't have to be).
Once my eye covers are ground to their final shape, they must be deburred to remove the metal shavings left on their edges. I also choose to do this by hand (usually). Once deburred, the eye cover can be used, though often I will choose to perform additional operations such as media-blasting or polishing. Below are a few pictures of the various finished products.
I usually choose to leave the parts raw since they're so small and barely noticeable, but if people desire I can blast or polish them. The blasting process is often called "sand blasting" although it's not actually sand but rather a silica medium, which produces a rough but consistent finish on all surfaces. The polished covers are buffed using white rouge and a buffing wheel until they show a mirror finish.
Parts can be anodized in any of these forms. Blasted parts will have a matte anodizing finish whereas the buffed/polished parts would have a glossy finish. Blasted parts are more resistant to oxidation so that's a much cheaper alternative to anodizing that I like to use (although they can still be easily scratched). Raw parts will tarnish over time but since the eye cover is so small it's barely noticeable. If tarnished they can be re-buffed to return them to their original look.
The finished Shocker looks like this: (glossy eye cover shown)
