[ale] [OT] [Way OT] need to fix eye glasses or replace at reasonable cost

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi all,

I have two eye glasses issues I hope you can help me with.  You've already been warned this is off topic.

Every time I deal with the eye glasses industry, I'm convinced most are gouging consumers.

Item 1) Wife's reading glasses.  Small round standard plastic lenses, bifocal with line.  There is a scratch on the outside of one lens.  The scratch is not too deep.  These do NOT have an anti reflective (AR) coating.

Item 2) My glasses.  Large lenses, strong prescription, high index plastic.  Used to have AR coating.  Coating started flaking off on one lens and, even before that, it had started becoming hazy with micro scratches from cleaning.  I won't be getting AR again if I have a choice.

I decided to scrape the AR off my lens with my fingernail.  It mostly worked, however there are residual scratches.  I can still use these glasses, but would rather fix or replace.

I go to a prominent famous place with an L and a C in the name.  They're nice enough, but, the guy says we don't have any way to remove the AR coating and there's no way to buff out the scratches.

So, he says, you have to replace the lenses, you have to do it in pairs, and you have to have the AR coating with high index plastic.  We can do that for you for only $ 415 for yours and $ 200 for your wife's not including the frames.  Oh, and he says, about 2 years is about all the use you can expect out of glasses.

I thanked him and walked out and thought, when hell freezes over.

So, I want to know if you all have any actual successful experience with solving a problem like this in one of the following ways:

A) For wife's glasses, polish out the scratch.  From my research, there are two ways to go about this.  Either remove all the material around the scratch to the level of the scratch then polish smooth.  This is more risky and difficult and subject to change the prescription of the lens.  The 1st method is basically an abrasive technique.  The 2nd method is to put some material in the scratch that has a similar refractive index and buff it smooth.  This is basically a polishing technique.  This appears to hold the most promise.

B) For my glasses, I want to actually chemically remove the AR coating.  Most of the scratches and hazyness are probably in the coating and should vanish.  I then want to polish out any remaining scratches.

C) I really doubt I'm willing to replace these lenses, but I might if I could get them cheap.  I actually only need one lens in each case, and I don't want AR coatings.  So, hers would be standard plastic, bifocal with line.  Mine would be single vision but high index plastic.  So, do you know where I could get such lenses cheap, but matched to our existing frames.

Any help is always appreciated.

Sincerely,

Ron



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Ron Frazier
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