You Know You've Been Around Too Long If . . .

[ziggy]

Didnt think I was that old...

...but I guess I am. Myo-disk in crown glass, when chem-treaters where a new thing. And along Chips line... remember when you could watch prime-time TV with out seeing butts/boobs or hearing "bad" words.

[arman61]

gee

I am about to go crazy. I just started in this industry and I know nothing. When I realize how much you guys know I lose hope. I really do like my job and I am learingin alot as I go along, however there some stuff that you almost never experince. Therefore you dont learn them as you should. like the techniques used to determine the power the lense back then. I kind a did understand it however there are some points that I need to try to understand them.
Stuff like that makes me think how long more should I be learning and studying to be a master optician.
Wow:drop:

[Spexvet]

I am bout to go crazy. I just started in this industry and I know nothing. When I realize how much you guys know I lose hope. I really do like my job and I am learingin alot as I go along, however there some stuff that you almost never experince. Therefore you dont learn them as you should. like the techniques used to determine the power the lense back then. I kind a did understand it however there are some points that I need to try to understand them.
Stuff like that makes me think how long more should I be learning and studying to be a master optician.
Wow:drop:

Don't sweat it. I never learned to crank a car to start it, and I do just fine driving around. My kids don't know about "dialing" the phone or how to work a record player, and hopefully, you'll never have to learn how to do most of the things posted here. The funny thing is that There are people out there that feel the same way about computers and new technology as you feel about old processes.
:cheers:

[CME4SPECS]

We used Titmus Kryptok oil as a flame retardant during pitch blocking and zyl frame warming. :)

That Kryptok oil was great stuff. When we ran out of it we'd send a newby to a local competitor to borrow some!

[Jacqui]

Arman61

It took most of us many, many years to get here. Don't give up it really is fun (I think). Some day you'll be talking about those D----D patternless edgers and progressive lenses.

P.S. I've been in the business since about 1969

[chip anderson]

Lensometers have been around a long time. But before that, you could use a lens bench (a meter stick with mounts for lenses). You neutralized the lens until you had a focal lenght of one meter and subtracted or added the powers of the trial lenses needed to accomplish this.

Chip

[Shutterbug]

I didn't have hair on my right arm until water based generator coolant came along! Generators would burn photograys, and the oil would catch on fire, and burn the hair right off in a small explosion! LOL those were the good old days all right!


shutterbug

[Chris Ryser]

Hinges ..........................

When I was an apprentice one of my daily chores was to replace broken hinges on zyl frames. You would push out the pins and put in new rivets for the rplacement hinges.

My boss was a screw fanatic and would not let me use rivets. I had to make threads into the hinge holes and then insert the stainless screws and rivet them.. After that, file off the screw slots, sand them and polish them to a high gloss.

The bad part about it when the customer came back 6 month later with another broken hinge iy was a major job to remove these screws.

In these days we used to tell the customers if they were left or right handed, because the right handed poeple always broke the left hinges or vice versa.

[Uncle Fester]

phillips head screwdrivers

I remember when Phillips head screws were an innovation! My first phillips head screwdriver was given to me through my employer from Charmant. It had a wood handle and lasted for years! Well, come to think of it maybe there were'nt that many phillips head screws in those days (late 1970's)! To this day I consider them a mixed blessing. They may save you from jamming a flat blade into your finger but they seem to strip the head so much easier!

[chip anderson]

Phillips

Don't know how long they have been in eyeglasses but they were on care door handles and other interior trim in the 1940's. I don't remember seeing all the special heads they have in construction screws (torrx, Square, etc) for power drivers until recently though.

[Andrew Weiss]

Early days of CR39 tinting:

-- using RIT dye from Woolworth's;
-- using antifreeze as the heat transfer fluid in tinting unit

Frame quality:

-- 30 years ago the oil embargo's saw production of gold fill and gold plate metal frames all but disappear.

Edger coolant: antifreeze as well :D

[Bev Heishman]

You have a Grolman fitting device in the closet and a Marine Tech frame or two and maybe even a few Bal Rim 51's tucked away.

[Chris Ryser]

Hidabevel in the 50's.............................

As of 1956 we used to make hidabevels for minus lenses by handgrooving 2 grooves by hand on a small ceramic stone on a rimless bevel 3mm apart and mounted them into plastic or metal frames for an extra charge.

They actually looked better with no reflection from the grooves as you get today from the automatic edgers.

[Shutterbug]

As of 1956

Ok Chris - now you're just showing off LOL :cheers:

[Chris Ryser]

No show off

....................now you're just showing off LOL :cheers:

I looked at your profile shatterbug and it say's + 30 years. I am a little ahead with + 50 years, therefore I should have some more grey hair.:cheers: