Tintable high index lenses

OK, here's what I think I know:

1. Some substrates aren't inherently tintable, like polycarbonate, and only the scratch coat tints.
2. Therefore, there are tintable (softer?) coatings put on some of these lenses, so you can get a decent tint. Otherwise it's pretty poor tint absorption.
3. Some substrates tint easily, e.g. CR39, 1.6, and I'm guessing no special coating is needed, there.

Questions:

1. What about 1.67 monomers? Does that substrate tint?
2. When it comes to tintable polycarbonate, what options are available? For example, can you order just about any PAL design?
3. Holy moly, what about digital? If you surface the front and the back, I don't know how they even get a SRC!

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Originally Posted by drk

OK, here's what I think I know:

1. Some substrates aren't inherently tintable, like polycarbonate, and only the scratch coat tints. Correct.
2. Therefore, there are tintable (softer?) coatings put on some of these lenses, so you can get a decent tint. Otherwise it's pretty poor tint absorption. Correct.
3. Some substrates tint easily, e.g. CR39, 1.6, and I'm guessing no special coating is needed, there. Correct, absorption on CR39 is best.

Questions:

1. What about 1.67 monomers? Does that substrate tint? Not really, hence why tintable hard coats are used.
2. When it comes to tintable polycarbonate, what options are available? For example, can you order just about any PAL design? All Poly options are available tinted, SV BF & PALS if lab uses tintable hard coat processing.
3. Holy moly, what about digital? If you surface the front and the back, I don't know how they even get a SRC! There is only one truly double surfaced PAL lens in today's market available, and the company that produces it doesn't tint poly. All other FF and Digital PALS are all SF SV blanks and 100% backside designs, (excluding camber PALS).

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See above.

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Originally Posted by Lab Insight

See above.

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And, As i understand, it in most cases, it still depends on the tintability or lack thereof of the HC applied regardless of the the index.

I almost never sell tints, polarised or photochromic are generally where it's at

So,
1.67 comes in two flavors. MR7 and MR10. MR7 is softer and is tintable, but still needs a backside coat applied. These can only be tinted prior to the BS coat. Once coated, however, the tint is locked in place and cannot be adjusted after the fact. I will not touch custom tints on full sized surfaced blanks, especially Grads, for obvious reasons.

So, overall, yes, tint-ability is based on the coatings used. Tintable coatings are softer and lower on the Bayer scale. 2.5-3.5 is the average. Not much better than an uncoated lens, IMO. 10 is the rating for glass. Best bet is to forgo custom tints, unless you stay with CR39. For other materials, stick with Polarized or Photochroms.

Poly actually comes in a variety of pre-tinted options. Brn3, Grey3, G-15(ish), Gradient and solid Polarized. A good alternative, and repeatable, if only one lens needs to be replaced at a later date.

A time consuming and more expensive option is to have a vacuum deposited tint, but your color options will be limited by the thin film provider.

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Originally Posted by Don Gilman

And, As i understand, it in most cases, it still depends on the tintability or lack thereof of the HC applied regardless of the the index.

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Correct.

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For other materials, stick with Polarized or Photochroms.

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I almost never sell tints, polarised or photochromic are generally where it's at

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Love the feedback. This is new thinking to me.


So help me understand, please.


When we specify something weird like brown 3 gradient, the lab is ordering a soft-coated front side lens that has tintability, and the lab does it themselves? If we specify something basic like gray 3 we probably get pre-tinted?

Labs will use a tintable backside coating for grads.
For solid 3 in poly, pre-tinted is the best option, which we provide. For other materials, tintable backside coating is provided

So....

We have penchant for poly in sunwear. Ergo, we would prefer pre-tinted for consistency, right? It will still have a so-so-softie scratch coat, though?

And always go for polarized, if possible, in poly, because you'll get a harder coat.

If we want to do a "fashion tint" (and I'm thinking of when we Rx ladies' designer suns) which includes bigradients, blues, greens, etc. CR-39 is advisable.

And for the most part, avoid other materials.

Look at the Essilor Colors line. Several color options, in solid and gradient, polarized and non. We mostly sell the Sienna Brown Polarized gradient and it is gorgeous.

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Originally Posted by drk

Love the feedback. This is new thinking to me.


So help me understand, please.


When we specify something weird like brown 3 gradient, the lab is ordering a soft-coated front side lens that has tintability, and the lab does it themselves? If we specify something basic like gray 3 we probably get pre-tinted?

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You can get gradient polarised

Drk, you might be getting a little hung up on the scratch coating here. We do polarized for 90%+ of all of our sunwear, but when we do custom tints we just order tintable hardcoat on whatever material we need, tint, then backside AR. We usually can't tint them past 70% dark but if we need a dark tint we can just order fixed tint lenses to start with. I've never noticed our tinted lenses with the "softer" hardcoat have any problems with scratching or the like.

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Originally Posted by Kwill212

Drk, you might be getting a little hung up on the scratch coating here. We do polarized for 90%+ of all of our sunwear, but when we do custom tints we just order tintable hardcoat on whatever material we need, tint, then backside AR. We usually can't tint them past 70% dark but if we need a dark tint we can just order fixed tint lenses to start with. I've never noticed our tinted lenses with the "softer" hardcoat have any problems with scratching or the like.

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+1. I agree with Kwill. Backside are less prone to abuse and wear/tear, and generally do not create problems The factory coatings that are applied to the front side are equal to most tintable hard coats on the back side. Caveat here is with FSV. There are multiple variables with FSV coatings. Some are easily tintable, like Essilor's true tint, Vision Ease Continua, etc., but other FSV lenses are not as easily tintable, even in CR39.

Most labs will use tintable backside coatings, unless Premium AR is requested, at which time, solvent based or thermal cured coatings are normally used. This, of course, depends on the lab that you order from.

Don't overthink this. Trust that your lab will know what coatings and lenses to use.

Thanks, people of color.

There are now pre-tinted lenses available that offer dark and consistent colors on high index materials.

Hi,
I have a supplier that provides me with tintable hard coats on all lenses poly to 1.74 but for some reason they are having trouble getting their supplier to give them/me the tinting criteria ie what temperature, primer usage etc
Hope you can throw some info my way
Thanks
Alan

I use a tintable HC on MR8 and MR10 with good results, which HC would you like to use? you also want to use Primer (it helps a lot in the color speed )?

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Originally Posted by apaul

Hi,
I have a supplier that provides me with tintable hard coats on all lenses poly to 1.74 but for some reason they are having trouble getting their supplier to give them/me the tinting criteria ie what temperature, primer usage etc
Hope you can throw some info my way
Thanks
Alan

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Wow, I've never heard of a tintable 1.74.

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Originally Posted by AngeHamm

Wow, I've never heard of a tintable 1.74.

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In most cases it's the HC not the material. Exceptions 1.498 and 1.56 don' require a HC although 1.56 is better to have it at least on the front and if it's surfaced the back side will absorb color Just today I did a 1.56 lens surfaced with a HC front and tinted to 80% in 15 minutes.

Great info!
Thanks for sharing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drk

OK, here's what I think I know:

1. Some substrates aren't inherently tintable, like polycarbonate, and only the scratch coat tints.
2. Therefore, there are tintable (softer?) coatings put on some of these lenses, so you can get a decent tint. Otherwise it's pretty poor tint absorption.
3. Some substrates tint easily, e.g. CR39, 1.6, and I'm guessing no special coating is needed, there.

Questions:

1. What about 1.67 monomers? Does that substrate tint?
2. When it comes to tintable polycarbonate, what options are available? For example, can you order just about any PAL design?
3. Holy moly, what about digital? If you surface the front and the back, I don't know how they even get a SRC!

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Material of lenses and HC play a large role in tintability - as many have already discussed on this thread and in greater detail than I would be able to explain.
Another factor to consider would be the tinting equipment being used and any preps applied to lens prior to tinting.
My lab runs a BPI Turbo 6 tint unit which significantly reduces tinting times for even hi-index lenses (regularly tint to sunglass intensity (70-80%) with little to no problems. I do order my lenses with the lab's (ABB primarily) tintable hardcoat and they seem to know what they're doing!
I couple with a lens prep to ionize.
Final note: BPI has a line of tints specifically designed to tint hi-index which I've noticed are more consistent in allowing the darker intensities to be reached.