Soldering eyeglass Frames

They don't show a frame the size I need for my lenses, but the prices are what seems to be about right. No way a frame is worth what the local guys are charging for them.

Hong Kong.

Yep.

Yep.

Please. The online offshore suppliers require your PD measurement for just this purpose.

Opticians don't "grind lenses" any more. They take a big stock lens for your Rx from an assortment on hand (itself likely an import from China), and trim the edges to fit the frame.

Lenses cost pennies, as proven by non-Rx high-quality reading glasses at the $1 store.

The big cost is the optician racket via the Rx system. The Web has finally busted that open.

Richard:

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I will order a couple of these and see how they work out. After I have gotten used to paying 500/600+ for my glasses--this just hit me as too good to be true.

It is obvious there is little cost in glasses, once the initial costs of their equipment has been setup. And, I don't really like changing frames--an aviator or modified aviator and I am as happy as h*ll. I think they could sell that model frames until the cows came home ... somehow I strongly suspect the antitrust laws of decades ago have been revised or else ignored.

Regards, JS

Please share your prescription with us.

Okay. How am I supposed to get it, if not from a local optician?

I assume you're kidding. Can you imagine how many millions of pre-ground "stock" lenses would be needed to every possible combination of lens size & shape, PD, prescription, etc? There probably aren't that many atoms in the universe!

He's not kidding. That's how all those "eyeglasses in a hour" places do it. They stock an assortment of ready made lenses. The "blank" lenses are large circles. They simply cut them to fit the frames you picked out. The size, shape, and PD are irrelevent, as they cut from the large blank which has it's optical center in the center.

I could see this if all you were correcting for were single refractive errors. But lenses also require astigmatism correction. Not to mention the different types of lens materials, coatings, etc -- and bifocals, trifocals, progressives, etc.

Furthermore, it would make no sense to stock all these variations, simply because of the capital investment involved. A store can't afford to keep rarely needed prescriptions in stock.

Finally... The lens has to be "ground" at some point, regardless of whether it's in China or the US. Are you suggesting that it would take an automatic machine more than a few minutes to do this -- while the technician was doing something else?

Nope. I still don't buy it.

The pre-ground stock lens fits in a machine with the correct profile follower for the frame. This guides a grinding wheel to remove excess material from around the edges of the lens until it will fit the chosen frame. a profiled wheel shapes the newly ground edges to give the lens a 'lip' which holds it in the frame. I`ve seen it done, it doesn't take long. The hard coating takes longer than the grinding.

Ron(UK)

Two pair cost me about $70.00 USD to order (shipping stays the the same, $4.95 USD, no matter how many pairs you order!)

Even if he is fibbing, maybe it will work out. At least at that price, I won't be disappointed longer than a couple of hours.

Regards, JS

Fence wire, and modeling paint.

You can argue all you like, but the fact remains, there are stores in just about every town of any consequence and most large malls that do exactly what I said. One example is Lenscrafters, which has over 800 locations. I am simply astounded to find someone who isn't aware of them, as they advertise this like mad on radio, TV and in print.

Of course I'm aware of LensCrafters -- I've bought glasses from them. I simply don't believe that they have tens of thousands of lenses that have been pre-ground to every conceivable prescription. It's not an economically efficient way to run a business.

I just remembered something... You can request these companies to grind the frontal radius of the lens to match the radius of your previous lens. This wouldn't be practical if the lenses were pre-ground.

I'll back off on this issue for the time being. The next time I'm near LensCrafters or a similar company, I'll ask.

Apparently, it IS an economically efficient way to run a business. They have been hugely succesful. For openers, do you have any idea what mass produced molded plastic lenses cost a place like Lenscrafters? A dollar each? Less? The markups in the optometry biz are astronomical. Stocking enough lenses to cover 90% of the people who walk through the door isn't nearly the expense you think it is. Especialyy when they can stock shallow and the inventory system automatically reorders as they are drawn from stock. The inventory even knows which ones move faster, and adjusts accordingly.

Yeah, so for the small minority iof cases where a customer needs something special, they make a phone call to the main warehouse and tell the customer that they have to come back tomorrow. Overnighting a pair of lenses is no problem when you are making $300-500 profit on a pair of glasses.

I can understand how plastic lens are quick and no big problem.

What amazes me is that it seems no longer to get the glass lens--but, these are being offered less and less often ...

Regards, JS

You might be right about all this. Who provided you with this information about stocking all or most of the the blanks?

"offered"? You mean, you ask for them and you're told they no longer sell them? Or, you don't ask and they don't mention glass as an option?

True, I just don't see them offered. At the price I have been paying for plastic--I am scared to!

Regards, JS