"Brent" wrote in message
ups.com...
I did the silly procedure of turning on my lathe while there was still
a good amount of wet friction polish on my piece. Of course, I was
standing right in front of the piece, and the force made some of the
polish fly off and some droplets hit my glasses. I expounded my
stupidness my not wiping off the polish from my glasses right away, and
now it's "permanetly" stuck. Being very persistant, a light fingernail
scratching proved futile. Using a sharp object such as a razor blade is
out of the question, as this would scratch the surface. I suppose
there is some kind of solvent that I can use to remove the polish
without damaging the rest, but I'm not brave enough to test it out
unless others have used such. Now the question remains - what should I
do/use to remove it?

It would be helpful to know from what material your lenses are made, but
there are a couple of general rules that you can follow:

1. Most plastics-- uncoated CR39 hard resin (the basic "plastic" spectacle
lens material), polycarbonate, and the bulk of the high-index plastics, such
as Seiko, are impervious to acetone (used sparingly) and isopropanol (propyl
alcohol). But this is only if they are uncoated. IF they have AR
(anti-reflective; you can detect this by a greenish-blue reflection from the
back surface of the lens), anti-scratch, or other types of coatings, the
coatings can be damaged by acetone, and some by alcohol. Be careful using
acetone around plastic frames--most will dissolve/melt with acetone
exposure. Remove the lenses from the frame if you have doubts.

2) Plastic lenses can be removed from the frame and soaked overnight in
water with a bit of detergent added. This will occasionally soften some
hardened water-soluble compounds, such as latex paint, enough to get them to
release. Is friction polish water-soluble? My guess is that it is not.

If the above procedures fail, you could try taking them to an optical shop
that has an ultrasonic cleaner. Occasionally we've gotten foreign material
to release from lenses by this method.

HTH,

Max