Knowing my area it won't sell. I don't even think they are "super-fashion"
I sold the heck out of them in the 1980's!
We don't have a big market for guys wearing a woman's frame with facets and baby blue tint. Now, if Elton John came in...different story.
OMG!!! Not again! How many of us labored over these thing in the 1980s? 2 patterns for every job: 1 for the basic edge, and 1 for the facets. Then, polishing the edges by hand (our edgers didn't do that way back when), tinting, and getting out the Dremel for mounting the "jewels." But wait! It got worse! Jewels fell out, mounting screws loosened, etc. This is one fashion statement that should not be revived!
Lost and confused in an optical wonderland!
I still do them the old fashioned way...All by hand! ( I need an ME1200!)
Guys, maybe fashion changes. Today I saw a online store advertise this kind of glasses on my FB page.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my word! NOT AGAIN! In the 80's when those things came around they devided the REAL opticians from the wanna be's. All by hand on old prehistoric weco floating head edger. Yes sir dem was da day. It was a challange to do them an I thought I got pretty good at it. Then thankfully that fad went away, they were a WHOLE lot of work and headache. Couldnt do one by hand now if I had to. The desire to prove anything to myself with those is long since past. If I had one of those new fangled edgers though I would be intreasted.
And since we are talking about them and the little stones people wanted in them lets not forget the pt's initals they wanted on them after we tinted them blue to clear to pink to match the little old ladies powder blue hair they just had put up in a bun, bee hive or fro. Ahhhhhhh way back when we could dance the night away and hold our liquor and had a full head of hair and no beer gut and a steady hand.
Oh, my greatest nightmare! I was managing a store for a major chain store, and they wanted to do the facet craze at the absolute lowest price. Subsequently the metal frames were so rigid they had major breakage issues at every store. They only had one lab supplying all their stores, and they flew me to that lab, and for two weeks I did nothing but broken facets, working on a bank of edgers, and like what was said previously, had to run 2 patterns per job. They had 2 people just doing the polishing of these warranted jobs, and it wasn't 8 hour days, more like 12 hour days. When I got there there were rows and rows of trays stacked 8 feet high just of warranted facet jobs!
Tried to do such a work today, and quitted at last. It may take me 2 hours to finish the polish.Gosh.
Two words: outside lab.
The massive fees they charge for facets are well worth it.
We do, a line called 'Toms Design' They do ok, 2-3 frames a month at a very expensive price...
Barry,
Your machine will not facet trivex, you must tell it is another material. I have not sold one and wonder if we will bother doing it ourself when we can send them to Barry.
Craig
Firslty, thank you, I was searching for a reply like yours in this old thread. I am working on an experimental custom project which involves facets on lens edges. The type of design must be done by hand, so I am very interested in hearing about your process and any tips and tool suggestions you could could give.
Faceting on Trivex requires a facet machine and diamond discs, beginning with 600, and going smoother from that point. We have 2 machines here and do about 10 per week.
We do inside facets with reverse engravings too, not to mention the stone settings...labor intensive!!! and you need to be good at what you're doing
I did my first one in 1967 in a Tura mounting if I remember. The customer came in a week later with two of her friends who wanted the same thing. The two friend each came in with a few more friends and we were off and running. I enjoyed fabricating them and the only problem that I had was overcoming the guilt at the exorbitant price we charged. But, I got over it.
I don't think that faceting and engraving would go over today as it did back in the day but you can never tell. If you are the only one in town . . .
........................................ beautiful idea. Something good to beat the competition.
.........................................the old style frames seem to go over well enough these days.
........................................do them by hand, so you do not have to go through the high expense of equipment installation, use only CR39 you do can do anything with, but charge enough for Artisan hand work, to make it worth it.
Well which one is it Chris? Should we focus on niches and become the best at our own little niche? Or should we all shut it down and just open mall kiosks charging piecemeal for adjustments, screws and nose pads for all the online sales? With the impending doom of Essilux and all coming down to put us niche operators out of business.
I do believe that Glen is referring to the technology and machinery used to facet gemstones clearly a case of overkill for a few jobs in an ophthalmic laboratory.
I used a regular diamond wheel hand edger and a buffing wheel with white rouge and a Dremel for the fancy stuff. All equipment that your lab probably already has.
That is all you really need unless you want to go into quantity production.Originally Posted by Dick Baker
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