What the heck is it?

**rbaker** · 12-19-2004, 04:33 PM

I was surfing around on e-bay and came across this AO device:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...861407585&rd=1

I know everything but I don't know what this item is. It sure looks pretty and if I were not retired I would buy it and set it up where everyone could see it as I have often been refered to as an old hand cranker.

Dick

**chip anderson** · 12-19-2004, 05:28 PM

I'm not sure but I think it's a circumferance Gauge. Either that or some form of edger.

**Jacqui** · 12-19-2004, 06:00 PM

Lens cutter

**MELVIN** · 12-19-2004, 06:08 PM

This is used to cut a glass lense by a pattern before you edge it on the old edgers or ceramic wheel edger.

**rbaker** · 12-19-2004, 06:32 PM

Not a lens cutter. Where is cutter? Where is chuck for pattern and follower arm?

The mystery continues.

Don't make my buy the thing just to find out what it is !

**shanbaum** · 12-19-2004, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by rbaker

Not a lens cutter. Where is cutter? Where is chuck for pattern and follower arm?

The mystery continues.

Don't make my buy the thing just to find out what it is !

It's a cutter, honest. Used to have quite a few of these, in a prior life. Some of the photos appear to be 90 degrees off axis.

I don't remember exactly how it worked (this was, like, 35 years ago). You'd score the surface of the lens to the shape with this and "chip" off the excess material.

Proto-roughing.

**hcjilson** · 12-19-2004, 07:03 PM

Cousin Robert, Make that "crib" off the excess material! :):):)

**JerryR** · 12-19-2004, 07:10 PM

Definitly a cutter. Crank rotated a glass cutter wheel around the lens according to the pattern shape. The arm on the other side exerted pressure on the cutting wheel when held down with your thumb. I used to have one made by Shuron, model 82-A

**shanbaum** · 12-19-2004, 11:41 PM

Originally Posted by hcjilson

Cousin Robert, Make that "crib" off the excess material! :):):)

Y'know, I was thinking... "cutting pliers"... "cribbing pliers"... couldn't remember which we used to call it.

Might be that the vernacular was a little peculiar in Dallas back then.

But, I think you're right.

**Jacqui** · 12-20-2004, 09:24 AM

It's deffinately a lens cutter. I used one for about the first year I was in the business, until we got a diamond edger. There is also a more modern looking model from AO, can't remember the number

Shanbaum: they are CRIBBING PLIERS, used them in the surface room too.

**Chris Ryser** · 12-20-2004, 10:10 AM

This is one of the early models. To bad, the picture shows it sideways lying down down. I worked with it cutting lenses with a AO pattern (big hole with two nothes on the side) then chipping off the cut parts and finishing bevelling the lenses by haND on a ceramic hand stone.

Next step was the AO Edgemaster with a ceramic stone that would make a bevel.

Only 1964 Weco came out with an automatic bevel edger that had a rough diamond wheel and eliminated the pre-cutting and chipping, the lens then wnet on a ceramic wheen which gave it a real nice bevel.

**shanbaum** · 12-20-2004, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by Chris Ryser

Only 1964 Weco came out with an automatic bevel edger that had a rough diamond wheel and eliminated the pre-cutting and chipping, the lens then wnet on a ceramic wheen which gave it a real nice bevel.

Maybe we had a few Canadian refugees working there...

**Jacqui** · 12-20-2004, 12:20 PM

We woud cut the lenses with a lens cutter like the one on Ebay and then put them on a rimless edger to cut them down to size and then bevel. Did lots of Sirmonts, Leading Ladies, and Ronsirs this way.

**Chris Ryser** · 12-20-2004, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by Jacqui

We woud cut the lenses with a lens cutter like the one on Ebay and then put them on a rimless edger to cut them down to size and then bevel. Did lots of Sirmonts, Leading Ladies, and Ronsirs this way.

I did see and work on a rimless edger mounted on top of a ceramic handstone in 1954...............do you recall any at an earlier stage?

**Bill Swain** · 12-20-2004, 03:16 PM

Thats a glass lens cutter. I worked with one when I was with AO back in the 50s

**Andrew Weiss** · 12-20-2004, 03:31 PM

Almost didn't recognize it. AO lens cutter. I learned on the more "modern" version of it in 1960.

**Jacqui** · 12-20-2004, 04:59 PM

Chris:

I worked on one in the late 60's, we were one of the last AO labs to update. Wish I could find one, they did a beautiful job. We had 2 types of them, one grey which was rough and a pink ceramic that almost polished the edges of glass lenses.

**PAkev** · 12-20-2004, 05:53 PM

I was at a liquidation auction of an optical practice a few years back when one of these came up for sale. Although the concensus was that it was a lens edger of some sort no one there really knew how it worked and it went for a redicously low price (I believe less than $20) The person that bid on it indicated they were purchasing it as a conversation piece.

Kevin

**Chris Ryser** · 12-21-2004, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by PAkev

.................The person that bid on it indicated they were purchasing it as a conversation piece.

Kevin

Kevin, the older we get the more we remember the "good ol times" when we and evrything else was a lot more primitive in private as well as in work.

Last year I picked up a "Bolex" 8mm movie camera at a garage sale for $ 5.00 and it lookes and works like brand new. It sold for over $ 1000.00 in the late 50s and early 60s. It actually is a nice conservation piece.