Hello,
Have a pair of eyeglasses that split in the nose (Bridge area).
They are made from one of those "super bendable" alloys like possibly Beryllium Copper, or Titanium, or...?
Really don't know what it is made of. These are just a guess.
I think I can re-solder them, but want to use the solder type that offers the best possibility of holding. Suggestions ?
Epoxy a better bet ?
Any suggestions and thoughts on this would be most appreciated.
Thanks, Bob
Per Bob:
I had a set of fancy-schmancy titanium frames that broke there.
The word I got from eyeglass shops was that they were not repairable.
I would repair them by adding a piece of metal, like from a paper clip, to bridge the break, and then use a mixture of epoxy and sewing thread wrapped around the old and new metal to hold them together. After the epoxy sets, I would paint the entire frame with a suitable color paint so that the pat ch looks like it was part of the original frame.
would you expect them to tell you otherwise?
That's a good idea, but painting the whole thing leaves the whole thing subject to chipping.
Maybe you can just paint the part you fiddled with, up to the next natural boundary, like the rim of a lens.
And instead of paint consider a marker pen. I have a brass candleabra that I didn't want to take to have replated again (bought during WWII when solid brass was impossible to get, unless you wanted valves for your fighter plane.) And instead of painting I just used a "gold" marer pen. Looked just like it did when I'd had it replated, 25 years earlier. (It wasn't an area that ever shone, almost glossy but not image reflective.)
They have silver colored pens too. Check the dollar store.
I took my mom's to a local jeweler that uses a laser to do spot-weld repairs. Same-day service on eyeglasses, and the price was reasonable.
Yep...the hinge on my eye glasses broke and I took them to a repair shop and they said the same thing "Unrepairable"
I got pissed off as I could fix the hinge myself if I only had a tiny piece of copper. I found an old all copper penny and snipped off just enough. Drilled a hole in it and used silver solder.
Though standard electrical solder would work, it's lead and I did not want that on my face.
Silver solder works fine, just has a slightly higher melting point.
That was 25 years ago and the fix is still good.
Tensile strength of epoxy is only about 10% that of metal. Solder is not much better. I don't know about brazing but strength is higher.
I tossed a titanium pair bought from Zenni Optical that broke like that. Had only paid $50 for them but if they were $350 that they would have cost locally, I figure I might have got new frames.
No problem with other Zenni glasses but single bridge wire makes for a weak link in high stress area.
Bob posted for all of us...
The eyeglass place I deal with has a lifetime warranty on their frames. For the $$$ they should. Take them back and see what they will do to make it right.
I'd second the query/suggestion regarding whether there's any recourse from the supplier first and the laser-welding second.
I'm guessing if they are one of these light-weight alloys you'll have essentially zero luck getting even silver solder to stick.
Good that you could do it, but to pay a shop to do that kind of work it would cost more than a new frame.
Since the frames are gold, new ones would have been fairly expensive
... Even if they charged $100 an hour for repair, it was only a half-hour's work
These can be repaired. A good optometrist should have facilities to repair glasses, not jes sell new frames. If you can't find an optometrist willing to do the work, try a good jeweler. I often suspected my optometrist's repair tech sent my gold frames out to be silver soldered by a local jeweler.
If that. Last time I had my $200 gold frames repaired, it cost only $40. Granted, this was over 10 yrs ago, but I suspect I'd be paying over $500 dollars to replace these gold frames and six-focal lenses, these days. ;)
nb
What does six-focal mean?
There are other names, I jes couldn't recall them. They are also called multifocals, varifocal, progresive lenses, etc. Basically, they are six levels of unlined focal lengths. When I got them, they were called "computer glasses", as I could easily focus anywhere from infinity (I'm astigmatic) to 18 inches for my computer monitor.
They are great Italian made gold (18K) frames. I no longer wear glasses cuz I can't afford a new pair. Plus, my astigmatism is minor enough, I can get by w/o prescription lenses. I now jes do without or wear off-the-shelf cheaters for reading. I do have an ancient pair of single focal length prescription laser glasses I keep in the car in case I end up driving at night. ;)
nb
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