Eyeglass Frame Materials
Eyeglass Frame Materials
The materials that eyeglass frames are made of, including some that are very unusual!
This is a pretty good summary of traditional glasses frame materials, to which I will add the following unconventional materials used in 3D-printed frames, that I have personally tried to wear quite extensively:
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PLA: lightweight, cheap, forgiving, ubiquitous, reasonably solid and durable, VERY easy to form - and deform - under moderate heat. Don't leave PLA frames on the dash of your car in the summer or you'll come back to a gooey mess. You can easily chemically-polish PLA smooth with acetone to make PLA frames very comfortable to wear on your skin for extended periods of time. PLA is a bioplastic made from plant material and is biodegradable, so it's a good choice if you're environmentally-minded. PLA has very low toxicity and is regarded as food-safe.
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PETG: a variant of PET - think frames made of the same plastic soda bottles are made of. Slightly stronger than PLA and a bit more tolerant of heat, but harder to polish smooth. Like soda bottles, it's not terribly environmentally friendly, but glasses frames use very little of it. PETG is also very low toxicity.Very comfortable to wear for a long time if you take the time to polish it.
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PVB: visually stunning. Can be polished to a shiny sheen in seconds - and destroyed just as quickly if you overdo it - with IPA. Clear natural PVB can be made almost transparent! Not that great mechanically, so only use it if you never abuse your glasses and you're after the aesthetics. Quite comfortable.
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Wood-plastic composite: I've only tried wood-infused PLA. It's substantially weaker than straight PLA and it's not terribly comfortable to wear for more than 12 hours, but it looks stunninly like real wood with a modicum of sanding with 400-grid sandpaper. If you like wooden items, this one is for you.
I'll never get glasses made with that Flexon/memory metal again. Although they really are lightweight and rather flexible, the last two pairs of them got brittle and snapped right in the center of the nose bridge in almost a year.
The second pair that did this managed to snap in half while I was simply cleaning my glasses, no undue stress or anything like that.
Now maybe if they made the nose bridge thicker, and possibly of a different stronger rigid metal, they might be alright and last the long haul, but honestly I think they deliberately engineer them the way they do as a known weak point.
Planned obsolescence...
That sucks. I bet you paid premium for the fancy material too.
Do you remember the brand name?
I'll have to try to see later after I get home, I don't think the markings on them are totally worn off yet. I loosely rember it says "Gun Metal" on the left earpiece, not sure if that's the brand or not.
I did manage to rig them back up though, using a piece of a hairpin, 3 layers of heatshrink, and a few wraps of tie wire at the ends to hold the hairpin tightly in place.
The rigup totally works too, but over time sweat starts degrading the heatshrink and it starts swelling up. Thankfully I have other glasses now, so the rigged up ones are put aside as backups.
I'll see about posting those later on.
As someone who buys at least two pairs of glasses a year and is very into 3D printing this is very relent to my interests. Thank you.
It would be great to see some close-up pictures of frames you guys have printed for yourself.
Sure. Here's a video showing the progressives I wear most of the time - printed in Galaxy Black PETG:
Here's the same design in green PLA, with near lenses mounted (I use those at home to read because they're really fugly 🙂):
And here's a version printed in TPU:
I tried to create unbreakable frames. They're unbreakable alright, but also much too soft to function properly as glasses, sadly.
And finally, here's a different style frame I made for a friend whose acetate frames crumbled to dust with time for some reason (probably a manufacting defect of the plastic material) who wanted to salvage his lenses:
It was a quick test print I sent him a picture of to ask him if the shape was okay. The final print was much smoother. I don't normally take pictures of the frames I made, but I had this one lying around in my cellphone, so there ya go.
I love the last one. I have a somewhat related problem with my frames, in that the paint is starting to peel away in some spots (probably due to my oily skin ^^') but the lenses are still perfectly fine. I've tried to find the same frame online but it's sold out everywhere, so maybe I could replace it this way. After all a good 3D printer is barely more expensive than new frames and lenses these days !
Hey, I meant to ask the other day..
What about the sort of frames that basically use fishing line to hold the bottom edge of the lens in place?
I've never had any before, but they always make me wonder, like what's the maintenance on those like? What if a lens pops out, can it easily be snapped back in? What if the line breaks, is it relatively easy to fix with new fishing line or what?
If you don't break them, they're maintenance-free 🙂
A fishing line is exactly what it is. The top half of the lens has a bevel, the bottom half has a groove for the wire. The wire is strung with some tension and the ends melted in place. Very repairable if you break em.
The lens will pop back in if the wire hasn't lost its tension, otherwise simply string up a new wire. Or bring the glasses to an optician: they routinely do that kind of repair.