On 2010-11-09, wrote:
I broke a joint on a metal eyeglass frame. The local eyeglass place
that last put new lenses into the frames (they did not originally sell
me the frames) apparently does not have a repair service to direct me
to and suggested that I go to a jewelery repair. I braise and silver
solder - if I bought a "jewelers torch", would that give me a small
enough of a flame to be able to silver solder the frame? Years ago I
tried to repair a broken joint in a scrap pair of glasses and tried to
either use a TIG or oxi-acetylene (I don't remember which) but all
that I accomplished was to burn away about 1/8 inch of the frame near
the joint. That failure was no loss on the trial frames but my
current frames are in daily use and I expect to keep them in use for
another 1/2 year and then have them as back up eyeglasses after that.

Well ... FWIW, a while ago I repaired a bracing bar across the
two halves of of one pair of safety frames (titanium frames, IIRC). I
took out the lenses first (of course) held them lightly in a vise on the
drill press, put some borax flux on the mating surfaces, and then with a
MAPP torch flowed some silver solder into it. (Sliver brazing, not
braising, since the frames aren't meat. Is your spelling checker
offering you the wrong correction? :-) After that, I switched to the
other half and repeated the process, because I could feel that it was
about to let go too. It is a little rough there, but strong enough so I
put the better of two pairs of old lenses into it after the other frame
(still holding up) got a new pair of lenses to match my needs with
cataract replacement surgery. (I could use off-the-shelf reading
glasses -- but I wanted safety glasses for the shop, and the old lenses
were not adding enough extra correction to make them useless in the
shop. Just some astigmatism correction which I no longer need. :-)

But -- you haven't said which metal your frames are, which could
make a difference. And you'll need something to wear to see how to
remove and replace the lenses near the work site and how to do the
detail work.

Good Luck,
DoN.

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