Is it possible to apply an edge polish to glass? I've always been told no but never tried. This job is for my friend who is a -12.00 and even the 1.9 lenses still look pretty thick. Any advice would be really appreciated.
Is it possible to apply an edge polish to glass? I've always been told no but never tried. This job is for my friend who is a -12.00 and even the 1.9 lenses still look pretty thick. Any advice would be really appreciated.
It is absolutely possible I have done hundreds of times. You will need a paste made of cerium oxide or a rouge that works on glass. The polish has to be applied to a felt pad that is mounted on a tool that will spin at a moderate rpm, you might try one of those car buffer machines that have a flat buffing wheel. Years age we used a Plano lap in the hand grinding pan none of which is used in a lab today.
As per Lensman11's post above a Dremel tool with the appropriate wheel will do the trick but about half way through the job you will wonder just what were you thinking. Very tedious and time consuming.
Old timers will recall there was a company called Ancyclo ??? down in Baltimore that specialized in edge coating. This was back in the days before polymer lenses and impact resistance so for these high minus jobs we used 1.9 flint glass with a 1.0 FCT in a zyle frame requiring minimum of decentration. We edger the lenses with a "hide-a-bevel" and shipper the lenses and frames off to Ancyclo. We usually received them back in four days. They were beautiful. The edges were enameled to the same color and texture as the frame.
They brought tears to the eyes of the myopic wearer although their eyes still looked like two **** urine holes in a snow bank.
I haven't edge polished a glass lens in many years, but I do recall using red rouge on a felt wheel. It is quite messy.
Why wouldn't clear fingernail polish work? May not last forever but could be re applied?Originally Posted by rbaker
Thanks everyone for the advice.
I polished the lenses today - they look a lot better! I managed to get a nice satin polish, not quite transparent like you can achieve with plastic though. I used a red polishing stone as advised (it's been around forever - I usually use a blue one on plastic).
Not saying I want to, but if I polished them for long enough, would they go fully transparent?
No, just no. There are better solutions than this.
You can obtain the same level of transparency on the edge as on the front and back surface. You will have to use cerium to accomplish it. The patients often times complain of severe reflections off the edges although it might look better to an observer. In days gone bye we would edge these on a ceramic edging machine giving a nice edge finish without the high luster. That technique is very slow and requires constant sizing of the machine as the wheel would wear along with edge of the lens. Diamond wheels supplanted this edging process mostly with better results this might be one circumstance where that is not the case.
Am I remembering correctly that one ceramic edger was the AO Trimatic?
A google search couldn't find one but I may be misremembering or misspelling it.
I assume you consistently got a ringer from that cribbed blank!
If you're a newbie to OB check out this thread and sorry for the potential hijack.
https://www.optiboard.com/forums/showthread.php/11314-You-Know-You-ve-Been-Around-Too-Long-If?
P.S.I miss this guy from post #43
Last edited by Uncle Fester; 09-02-2021 at 11:09 AM.
Uncle Fester
You got the name and the spelling correct and there was the Dual matic and the LeMay made by Santinelli in the USA as well as a machine made by Shuron the model I have forgotten as I never had one.
Ringers we used to hang on a dowel everybody had their own at the of the month the most ringers got a free lunch. Can’t say those were the good old days as it was dirty hard work that really took many years to master.
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