A few months back, I was lucky enough to pick up one of Spat's Apone binocular kits, and was very keen to mod mine in the same way retrogarde had [as detailed in this excellent thread ]

I didn't think to take any pre-mod pics, but the kit starts life like this, a hollow but thick-walled resin model of three pieces


Not long after getting it, I started hunting for some cheap opera glasses, or similar, to be my donor lenses. Failing to find anything not vintage [which I'd not want to destroy], or just too much $$. Then I had an epiphany around a pair of little mono scopes from AliExpress, that I'd bought a year or so back for some other project (they didn't work out for that job, but proved to be prefect for the bino lenses.

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Cpl Aron "septic" Williams
A10/TQ0.0.82146E1

I drilled /sanded out the resin rear lenses completely, and then tried a few different ideas for a plate to sit on the inside face of the resin lens housing, to which the replacement lenses from the mono scopes were glued.


Also mounted an old vinyl strap I had laying around, after carefully drilling thin slots through the bino body (same way retrogarde did).


And finally, I drilled out the front lenses [a little nerve-racking!], and hand sanded till I could friction-fit the mono scope front lenses in.

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Cpl Aron "septic" Williams
A10/TQ0.0.82146E1

Finished prop (NB: this actually is a much browner colour, it's quite interesting how it looks OD under natural lighting).





Tempted to pop the front lenses out, and paint black around the edge, as the white edge is quite visible ... dunno, they're stuck in pretty tight.

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Cpl Aron "septic" Williams
A10/TQ0.0.82146E1