On Jul 18, 11:33 am, steamer wrote:
--OK like most folks my age I depend on my glasses pretty heavily.
So when one of the side pieces fell off I was in a bit of a pickle as I
couldn't see to fix them! Off I go to Lenscrafters to have *them* fix them.
Natch they 'can't be fixed' and they don't have that style frame anymore so
I have to buy new frames ($150.-!!) and now the old lenses don't fit so they
have to duplicate my prescription for another $200.- and put the new lenses
in the new frames. OK, in for a penny, in for a pound, eh? I NEED my
glasses to do *everything*. So they go to working out the details and it
turns out my original lens prescription is from 2002; works fine, no need to
change, BUT in Kahlifoania there's a LAW that says it's ILLEGAL to make new
lenses from a prescription that's more than TWO years old: say whaaaat??? So
who's the weasel who thought that one up?? My optometrist is in another
city, so it meant a trip home, call them, have 'em fax the old prescription
to Lenscrafters, go thru the whole rigamarole, spend the MONEY and get the
new spectacles. ****!!
--What I wound up doing: put on my welding bifocals (which
thankfully I did have made special again many moons ago) which have a focal
distance of under 2 feet, so I could see the problem with the frames. I
reassembled the parts that had fallen apart (something like an eye with a
tiny tang on it slipped about 1/8" into a box-shaped hole on the side piece)
and put the loose assembly in a small vise. First I drilled a #68 hole thru
the intersection (the largest I could safely do). Then I got a 3/64"
stainless cotter pin out of stores, pried it open and used one leg as a
handle and ground down the two sharp sides of the half-round other half,
making it into a "D" section: not round, but close enough. I pressed this into
the drilled hole, trimmed it and bent the protruding ends over.
--This was the easy part; the hard part was getting the tiny little
screw back in the frames to connect the dots! I couldn't do it; SWMBO
couldn't do it; natch the forceps had gone missing, what to do? I went over
to the electronics bench and found the smallest diameter heat shrink I had,
maybe 1/16" i.d. and slid the head of the screw into one end of a short
piece. Then I used the tip of a soldering iron and with it near the heat
shrink I rolled the loose assembly along the bench until it shrank around
the screw head. This worked as a handle and I managed to get the
(nonmagnetic titanium) screw started back in the frames. Screwdriver
finished the job and I saved $300.-. Great satisfaction in telling the State
of California and Lenscrafters to **** off.

--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : A steaming pile of
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : obscure information...
www.nmpproducts.com
---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

I'm sure an HSM with a watchmakers lathe and miscellaneous tools could
easily open an "eyeglass repair service" Specifically doing the
"Unfixables" and i bet a lot of local eyeglass places would refer
clients to you if you approached them

In your situation is'm sure for example a NON mechanically inclined
person would be happy to have the "UNfixable" pair saved for say $50?

Just tossing that idea out there?

Brent

Ottawa Canada