Lab problems

[OPTIDONN]

OK our main lab, Expert Optics in Shorewood IL, has a real problem. The person who runs the stock lens dept. is really giving them a bad name. We get some of our stock lenses both finished and semi-finished from them and they come in wrong, if at all, way too much. Today we had one of our patients absolutly livid that the lenses were not here yet. I told them that it has been two days since we placed this lens order and if these lenses can't get here tonight please send us something! They were finished poly s.v. but did they show up? NO!!! The people in the lab and in customer service kick butt!!! They can get a poly progressive with a/r out in no time! But if you ask for a stock lens it can take a while. We are so angry!! We love this lab unless we have to order stock lenses. Somethings needs to change how should I bring this up with the lab? We don't want to take our business some were else but something NEEDS to be done!

[harry888]

I too love my lab, but find they are bit lacking in stock lenses. They are excellent with the surfaced stuff.

I go to one of the big suppliers like nassau or ABB for stock uncut. More variety and lenses in stock.

Harry

[Jim Stone]

NEEDS to be done!

You need to change labs. That's what needs to be done. You are in denial. Get on with it. Find a lab you really like.

[Chris Ryser]

They can get a poly progressive with a/r out in no time! But if you ask for a stock lens it can take a while. We are so angry!! We love this lab unless we have to order stock lenses.

Talk to the bossman.................tell you love his lab service...........but also tell his stocklens service stinks............and if you have one more problem you buy the stocklenses elsewhere.

[ilanh]

I use a lab that's pretty good but their uncut stock lens prices are much steeper than I could get buying it myself. Therefore, I purchase the stock lenses elsewhere and have them shipped to the lab which then edges and mounts them. This increases the wait time but is a lot less expensive.

[Chris Ryser]

I use a lab that's pretty good but their uncut stock lens prices are much steeper than I could get buying it myself. Therefore, I purchase the stock lenses elsewhere and have them shipped to the lab which then edges and mounts them. This increases the wait time but is a lot less expensive.

Hoe about buying a used automatic edger and do your own cutting on stock lenses. If it works out you progress to newer equipment and do all your cut and grind.

[shanbaum]

Hoe about buying a used automatic edger and do your own cutting on stock lenses. If it works out you progress to newer equipment and do all your cut and grind.

"Cut and grind"? Boy, are you showing your age.

[Jacqui]

"Cut and grind"?

I haven't heard that since I first started, back when we used lens cutters and ceramic edgers :)

[Chris Ryser]

"Cut and grind"? Boy, are you showing your age

I haven't heard that since I first started, back when we used lens cutters and ceramic edgers :)

With age comes wisdom, expierience, you can smell the BS, and you dont get brainwashed anymore by all these "deja vue" items.

I am probably the only one on the Optiboard that can certify having done manyl pairs of - 15.00D to + 15.00D lenses from uncut to finished mounted, on a ceramic stone driven by a belt, motor under the table.

Having learned to use a semi-automatic old Weco attachement on top of the ceramic edger.

Cut lenses on the old AOCO diamond lens cutter and rhen using the chipping pliers.

Heating celluloid frames on a bunsen burner. Change hinges that had rivets. Do at least 5 soldering jobs a day. Glueing back broken frames with acetone and deliver them to the customer next day in a way you could not even see were it had been broken.

Then selling an using the first automatic Weco edgers in 1963. They g=had a rough diamond wheel and a ceramic wheel for super smooth finish. I still have my old MBA machine, the electronics controlled by radio tubes and three diamond wheels, made by ESSILOR France, purchased in 1971, kept as a souvenir that is still in good running condition with 89,500 lenses on the counter.

Can any of you neutralize a lens without a lensometer ? If not I can show you.

Having been part of the introduction of the first progressive lenses and more,I have a few expiriences under my hat that you younger guy's and girls can only dream of.

:D :D :D :D :D

[baltooptician]

Chris,

I rememeber hand rocking in curves and laying out surface with a compass. I also rememeber when in the field tracing the lens pattern and then chipping a- way at the lens and taking it down on a stone and adding the bevel. All these lenses were glass. The good old days - when there were no buttons to push and compuer printouts to work from.

[Jacqui]

OK Chris:

If the old records from AO could be found, you would notice that I too hand beveled a lot of high minus and high plus lenses. One ceramic had a rimless attachment on it, probably like your Weco, the other didn't. Cut lots of lenses on an AO lens cutter and then using "cribbing" pliers to remove excess (made lotsa ringers too :) ).

Our first automatic edger was a used AO ceramic, put a beautiful bevel on lower powered lenses, but had to be retrued about every 50 Rx's or so. Got our first diamond edger in about 1971, WOW, big improvement. Both used alloy blocking.

I remember grinding and polishing glass slab-offs on a hand polisher. Making bifocals using SV lenses and buttons for the segs, and then fusing them together. Grinding and polishing (rocking) cylinders on a hand polisher. Made Franklin bifocals from glass by hand too.

Drilled lots of glass lenses too. Light touch, lots of red oil and lots of patience. Don't remember any coming back broken except from abuse. Fixed lots of broken hinges w/rivets. fixed broken frames with acetone (don't forget to repolish). Soldering frames and especially nose pad arms.

Remember Red Dot screws??

Most of the new frames came in parts, seperate fronts and temples and sometimes tops for the combination frames. Rimless and some combination frames that were still made from 14K gold.

Never had to neutralize a lens by hand (we always had lensometers) but I used to do it to impress the apprentices. Used a set of brass curve gauges to check the curves on lenses, could tell how much a lens was off most of the time.

Seen some of the early progressives, wasn't impressed, wore execs instead.

I was taught by one of AO's old masters and learned to do everything by hand before we modernized (we were one of the last AO labs to do so).

So Chris, you may be a bit older and wiser, but there are others here that have done the same things and just as many of them.

[For-Life]

Well Chris, I do respect what you have done. There are many things I have never done and I have to give you tons of respect for doing it. I have never drilled glass, I have never cemented a pair of lenses, I have never put a plastic frame back together, ect.

I have hand edged several pairs of lenses on a bevel-less wheel, I have drilled lenses with a dremil, I have also done some innovative things, but I will never do what you guys used to do.

In some ways it is a shame, but in more ways, it just does not matter. My edger does a great job and soon I will have an edger that feathers and grooves. What does this mean? This means that when I do not have time to do the work someone else can with very little training.

I have done tricky jobs, but now it gets to the point that I have done them, I know I can do them, so what do I need to prove. Sometimes it is more efficent just to get the lab to do them.

I was discussing this issue with my father yesterday. We talked about the days when the only material for lenses was glass, no PAL's, no coatings (except a tint) and hardly any frames selection. The choices were what type of bifocal, what size frame, and what colour tint.

You guys had to do a remarkable job, but I have to keep up with a lot of the information today. What new lenses have come out? What new techiniques are there? What are the latest in style of frames? How can I charge $1000 for a pair of glasses when no one else in town sells a pair for over $500? Ect.


Edit - Chris, if I am ever in Montreal you have to show me how to neturalize without a lensometer.

[rsandr]

Edit - Chris, if I am ever in Montreal you have to show me how to neturalize without a lensometer.

Do you OD's in the US not have to do that as part of your training/exams.

[For-Life]

Do you OD's in the US not have to do that as part of your training/exams.

I am not an OD and I am not in the US

[rsandr]

I am not an OD and I am not in the US

Sorry I wasnt paying attention.

Rick

[Chris Ryser]

Do you OD's in the US not have to do that as part of your training/exams.

When I tool my courses at the Northampton in London, (lon time ago) they had no lensometer in the college. I had never been without one and learned the old english way how to neutralize. Having had expirience with lenses it was basically easy to catch on.

In the USA they probably never heard of it, or the ones that did are 6 feet under ground.

[OPTIDONN]

Your right Chris. I read about hand neutralization in a few older books and have practiced quite a bit and have gotten pretty good (I still double check with a lensometer, I don't trust my results all the time). What I have learned from it has come in handy. I think it may be a somewhat lost skill.

[Chris Ryser]

So Chris, you may be a bit older and wiser, but there are others here that have done the same things and just as many of them.

Jaqui, maybe you and me.........and some other of the Optiboard practical wizard oldies should start a megalab in Texas with the motto.........."quality guaranteed because from the CEO to the manager of disposal there are 10'000 years of expirience among management no other lab in North America can provide".
We would only need a few younger ones to work the AR coating machines.
(Before we would go into any alzheimer stage we would take over ESSILOR and Luxottica, just to prove that a few oldies still have some kick left)

or

We could start an optical school teaching the young ones who dont know right from left............."courses in practical optics science" that does not exist yet.

or

we could write the script for a hilarious TV sitcom based on all the information we gather on the Optiboard. About 120 episodes should be sufficient.

:cheers: :cheers: :drop:

[Jacqui]

I would go for the first and second ideas. Another good idea is charging the lab rats tuition while they actually learn by doing our Rx's for us, thus provideing free labour and a larger profit for us. The only cririsism is the location, Texas is no good, too many snakes and armadillos.