Repair of reading glasses

Bill · 2009-03-11T14:35:16+00:00

I don't know why I get sucked into these things....I have been asked to try to repair the glasses of SWMBO's sister. She lost her husband last week after a very short and traumatic illness. Apparently he used to repair her glasses.Both side arms have broken off at the hinges, and have been repaired repeatedly with, I'm told, superglue, which has run into and around the hinges. The frames are plastic but the side arms are all metal, attached to the frames via the hinges by small plates and two screws. Both breaks are on the hinge at the side arm side. I'm told the glasses are 35+ years old and are important because of some feature of the lens coating.She has visited two local opticians who have said they can do nothing because of the glue. She doesn't seem to want to have an eye test at the moment. I've done a search and printed out some adverts for frames repair.If I'm to attempt a repair myself, I see two possible options.1. Take the metalwork off the frames, attempt to dissolve the glue with acetone, then dismantle and attempt a glued repair with epoxy, then re-assemble the hinges.2. Glue some hinge-type plastic across behind the existing hinge. Does such stuff exist?The third possibility is to just glue something across the hinge area to make them permanently open, which I assume was the way they were before, but this seems pretty unsatisfactory.Any advice? Has anyone ever tried this type of repair?

Mar 11, 2009 24 Replies

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geoff 17 years ago

In message , gazz writes

Just drill a hole in between the eyebrows (experiment on Alaisdair Darling first), hammer a rawlplug in, then you can just screw them in

rotate them out of the way when not required

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geoff 17 years ago

Animal magnetism ?

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geoff 17 years ago

In message , Bill writes

Then just stick a blob of JB weld on the join

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Andy Burns 17 years ago

Been done

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Tim Downie 17 years ago

Hi Bill, hope the repair is holding together.

I just got to thinking about what you said above though. Most people who use reading glasses find that their accommodation worsens over the years and a prescription that was valid 35 years ago definitely won't be right now. I appreciate though that they may be "good enough". What I can't help wondering though is why she's hung on to the same pair for so many years. Might it be not that they ever had any sort of fancy coating but in fact belonged to her mother?

It would possibly explain the determination to hang on to them long beyond their normal life span.

Tim

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