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

  1. #1
    Optical Clairvoyant OptiBoard Bronze Supporter Andrew Weiss's Avatar
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    Big Smile You Know You've Been Around Too Long If . . .

    You know you've been around too long if:

    -- you have an AO Red Dot screw extractor -- and you know what it is and when you got it!
    -- you learned how to edge on an AO Trimatic edger.
    -- you can score and hand-crimp a glass lens and get a ringer (and you know what a ringer is).
    -- you used hair spray to adhere the extruded chucks to the lens.
    -- you used suction cups for blocking and considered that an advanced innovation.

    These ones are from Uncle Fester and Andrew.

    Please add your own. ;)

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    Pomposity! Spexvet's Avatar
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    You know you've been around too long if:

    -- you did finishing lay out with a protractor, and thought a projectomarker was a Godsend.

    -- you felt that the LEAP pad system was an innovation.

    -- you'd rather drill the "semi-rimless" lenses, rather than figure out how to use that new-fangled groover.

    -- you remember actual sand or salt in the frame warmer.
    ...Just ask me...

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    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    Never too long.................


    You know you've been around too long if:
    Dead wrong..........................
    If you guy's have been around that long it is NOT too long.........it is that we have followed the evolution from primitive to modern.
    How about nutralizing lenses without a lensometer............with trial lenses? And then marking them for cut and grind.

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    Underemployed Genius Jacqui's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris Ryser

    How about nutralizing lenses without a lensometer............with trial lenses? And then marking them for cut and grind.
    Gee, Chris, I thought I was the only one that remembered how to do that.

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    Pomposity! Spexvet's Avatar
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    How about presciptions chiseled on stone tablets?
    ...Just ask me...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris Ryser
    [/left]How about nutralizing lenses without a lensometer............with trial lenses? And then marking them for cut and grind.
    How the heck does that work ??? EXPLAINATION please

  7. #7
    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    Redhot Jumper Neutralize a lens The Old Way............................

    Quote Originally Posted by omisliebling

    How the heck does that work ??? EXPLAINATION please
    Neutralizing a lens without a measuring device

    Article by Chris Ryser (Dec 10,2004)



    In the old times when there were none of our today’s fancy analyzing instruments that look at a lens and printout the result, the optical industry had to use the manual way of neutralizing a lens to define its power, center and axis.

    In Europe Opticians used lensometers already in 30s while in England they were Neutralizing lenses until the late 1050’s.



    Here is how to do it:



    Look through a lens at a line…………….move lens up and down or side ways.



    If object line appears to go against movement it is a + lens.

    If object line appears to go with movement it is – lens



    Look through a lens at a line…………….rotate lens to right and left



    If object line appears to move against or with rotation you have a plus and minus cylinder which are exactly at 90 degrees from each other.



    Make marks at 90 degrees on a spherical lens and were the lines seen through the lens and the actual line meet (cross), and that is you optical center.



    Make marks on the edge of a cylindrical lens while rotating the lens were the line seen through the lens and the actual line meet. Do the same aty 90 degrees and draw the cross line with a marker. You now have the optical center where the 2 lines cross and you have the position of the 2 cylinders (+ or -) reading.



    Defining Power Of The Lens



    The only tool needed is a set of trial lenses as used by the optometrist or the ophthalmologist in the refraction room.



    Spherical lenses



    As the lenses have been marked with their optical centers and cylinders we now can proceed to neutralize verify the power of the lens. We will assume as an example, that we have 2 spherical lenses of 2.00D one in + and in –,



    Again look through the lens at the line and move it along the marked line and you will have a countermovement in case of a + line. Now you take a – trial lens of –1.00, hold it onto the lens to be measured and you will see the countermovement to be much less. Take the next lens in .0.25 steps or as required until there is no more movement and you have arrived a plano (no more power = Neutral)



    The -lens you have used to neutralize the power at plano is the reciprocal power of you plus lens. Result + 2.00.



    The same procedure applies for the minus lens by using plus diopter trial lenses.3


    Cylindrical lenses



    Here again you will have to follow the same rule with the trial lenses. We will assume you are using a +2,00D sphere with a -2.00D cyl lens.to make it simple.



    The already at 90 degrees marked lenses are rotated against our established black line. You now will have to neutralize both values as before with the spherical trial lenses for each of the 2 marked line crossing at 90 degrees. When the movement stops you are at plano and the lens used, again is it’s reciprocal value.



    You will have used a –2.00D lens to neutralize the sphere and a + 2.00 lens the – 2.00D cylinder for an RX of:



    +2.00 D -2.00 cyl at 180 degrees



    or plano + 2.00 cyl at 90 degrees



    You can now progress to mark the lenses for cut and grind on the protractor and have made the job like they did in the old times.

  8. #8
    Bad address email on file Rich R's Avatar
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    How about using green pitch and a gas flame to block glass lenses and rocking cylinders on by hand so they don't chip.

    Those were the good old days.
    Rich R

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    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    Heating frames.........................

    We used to heat the plastic Zyl frames over the flames of a bunsen burner yo get them soft before inserting the lenses.

    The ols Zyl frame were made from celluiloid and highly flammable and caught fire once in a while and you had to blow out the flames very quickly. Usually there was just some surface damage which could be corrected by sanding, filing and polishing on the buffer.:D

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    Underemployed Genius Jacqui's Avatar
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    I repolished way too many.

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    Cape Codger OptiBoard Gold Supporter hcjilson's Avatar
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    Anyone remember making Temporary Cataract lenses. Carriers were either plano or cylindrical in power. Buttons ranged from +10 to +15or 16.(momory fades!) Buttons applied with pitch after carrier was heated over an alcohol burner......watch out for the first below freezing day.....many button's came off! :)
    "Always laugh when you can. It is a cheap medicine"
    Lord Byron

    Take a photo tour of Cape Cod and the Islands!
    www.capecodphotoalbum.com

  12. #12
    Jeweled Eyewear Billy Brock's Avatar
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    We used Titmus Kryptok oil as a flame retardant during pitch blocking and zyl frame warming. :)

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    Underemployed Genius Jacqui's Avatar
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    We used bifocal cement to glue the buttons on.

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    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    Confused Cataract lenses ...........................

    Quote Originally Posted by hcjilson

    Anyone remember making Temporary Cataract lenses. :)
    Used to go to the hospital and fit the poor patients with their first cataract glasses. They had been operated and had to lie there without movement for a week got the temporaries when leaving hospital and then came back to the store a few weeks later for a permanent job made in small pantoscopic metal frames.

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    Can you remember when you never saw a man who needed a hair cut unless he was a drunk from the very backwoods?
    You never saw a man with a beard unless you went up into the most rural areas of mountainous southern states, or visited the Pensylvania Amish?
    When all women wore bras and usually a girdle whether they needed either or not?

  16. #16
    Master OptiBoarder ziggy's Avatar
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    Crier 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.
    Paul:cheers:

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    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:
    Last edited by arman61; 12-13-2004 at 11:40 AM.
    "Gravitation can't be held responsible for people falling in love"(Einstein)
    "To go no where follow the crowd''

    Arman PourMirza

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    Pomposity! Spexvet's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by arman61
    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:
    ...Just ask me...

  19. #19
    Master OptiBoarder
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    Quote Originally Posted by Billy Brock
    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!

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    Underemployed Genius Jacqui's Avatar
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    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

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    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

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    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

  23. #23
    Manuf. Lens Surface Treatments
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    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.

  24. #24
    Compulsive Truthteller OptiBoard Gold Supporter Uncle Fester's Avatar
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    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!

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    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.

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