Eyeglass repair & emergency glasses

(Survival manual/6.Medical/c) General clinic/ Eyeglass repair & emergency glasses)

How to Repair Broken Eyeglasses at Home
eHow Health
<http://www.ehow.com/how_6525813_repair-broken-eyeglasses-home.html#ixzz1HPUn5suA> Some eyeglass frame repairs are done easily at home.
You can repair your broken eyeglass frames at home if necessary. Most repairs are considered temporary and are done to help you get by until your eye care practitioner replaces your frame or glasses with new ones. Several do-it-yourself repairs are done easily with just a few tools and items you probably already own. Fix your own eyeglasses at home in just a few steps.

Things you’ll need:
•  Small screwdriver
•  Tape
•  Pliers
•  Eyeglass repair kit (Amazon.com ~$4.10)
•  Towel
•  Nail polish remover
•  Fast bonding glue

1.   Spread a towel over your work area surface. In case any small parts fall, you will find them easier. Replace any missing screws. Tighten all screws by placing the frame so it is resting on your work surface with the head of the screw pointing up. Some frames have screws on the bottom side of the frame, slightly hidden. Check all sides of the frame for hidden screws. Inexpensive eyeglass repair kits are sold in most major department stores and optical retail shops and contain different sizes and types of screws commonly used in most eyeglass frames, and small screwdrivers.
2.   Reattach broken temples, the part of the frame that rests on your ear, or hinges with glue. Be sure to clean off any old glue from previous repairs with nail polish remover. Frame parts are either metal or plastic. Use the proper type of glue designed for the material you are repairing.
The hinge holds the front of the frame to the temples. The broken hinge may be attached to the front of the frame or to the temple. Use a toothpick and dab a little glue in the hole where the hinge fits. Insert the hinge and hold for 60 seconds. Depending on the repair, you may not be able to open and close the temple once the hinge is adhered. Use caution when taking your glasses on and off.
3.   Fix bent metal frames by reshaping the end piece, located at the outer edge of the top of the frame front. This holds the temples to the front of the frame and can become bent. Cover the pliers’ tips with tape to prevent scratching the metal frame. Grasp the front of the frame with one hand and cover the end piece with the pliers’ tips and compress gently. Bend slightly to widen or tighten the end piece.
4.   Repair a broken bridge, the part of a metal or plastic frame that sits on the nose, with tape or glue. Tape is a temporary fix and is bulky and unsightly, but does work in emergencies. Wrap tape tightly around the two pieces of broken frame until the frame feels stable. Have someone else hold the frame while you wrap the tape. Glue is also used to hold broken plastic frames at the bridge but does not hold long. Be careful not to get glue on your lenses.

A.  How to Repair Eyeglass Temples
eHow Health
<http://www.ehow.com/how_8045585_repair-eyeglass-temples.html>
Repair eyeglasses at home for a temporary fix.
Broken eyeglasses can ruin your day, but when immediate repair by an optician is not possible, some eyeglass problems can be mended at home, including damaged temples. Always bring them to an optician, as poorly repaired eyeglasses can result in additional vision problems or discomfort. Use these repair tips for temporary fixes.
Things you’ll need:
•  Eyeglass screws
•  Eyeglass repair kit, including tiny flat-head screwdriver
•  Lighter
•  Hot glue gun
Procedure
1. Replace Screws
__a) Examine the screws that join the temples and front of your eyeglasses. Different-sized screws are used in different glasses, but eyeglass repair kits available at drug or grocery stores contain screws of various sizes.
__b) Compare the size of the screws you have purchased to the loose or broken screw in your glasses. If the screw was lost, base the size of the replacement on the size of the joint.
__c) Align the frame with the edge of the temple. The joint holes should match. Insert the screw into the joint. Tighten with the tiny screwdriver included in the
eyeglass repair kit.

2.  Steam the plastic
__a) Use heat to fix temples of plastic glasses that have been bent out of shape. While wearing gloves to protect your hands, hold the frame over boiling water. Allow steam to heat the temple.
__b) Gently touch the plastic with your thumb and forefinger to test malleability.
__c) Shape the temple as it was before it was damaged. Continue to check heat and malleability levels as you do. The temple also can be replaced with an identical or similar piece from another pair of glasses.

3.  Use hot glue
__a) Use a hot glue gun to repair metal frames when the temple is broken in two. Allow the glue gun to heat according to directions.
__b) Squeeze the handle, placing heated glue on one piece of the temple.

• Tips & Warnings: If you have non-metal frames and are not sure that your frames are plastic, do not attempt to heat them. Some frames may appear to be plastic, but are made from less malleable materials.

B.  How to Repair a Broken Eyeglass Frame
Repair a Broken Eyeglass Frame
With the help of an inexpensive eyeglass repair kit, you can perform minor repairs on eyeglass frames. The kits are sold at drugstores and hardware stores.
Things you’ll need:
•  Fast-bonding Glue
•  Orthodontic Rubber Bands
•  Magnifying Glass
•  Clear Nail Polish
•  Eyeglass Repair Kit And/or Miniature Safety Pin
•  Toothpick
•  Pliers With Tape On Tips
Procedure
1. Examine the cause of the problem with a magnifying glass. Is the hinge stretched out? Is the screw loose or missing? Did the hinge break off?
2. If the hinge is stretched out, cover the tips of a pair of pliers with masking or duct tape to avoid scratching the frames and then use the pliers to bend the hinge gently back into place. Or slide an orthodontic rubber band (available from dentists) or a small rubber ring (an eyeglass repair kit may include this) over the loose hinge to hold it in place.
3. If the screw is loose, tighten it with a tiny screwdriver from the eyeglass repair kit. The tip of a paring knife will serve as a screwdriver in a pinch.
4. If the screw is lost, replace it with one of the screws from the kit, or slip a miniature safety-pin into the screw hole and close it. If the repair kit’s screw does not fit into the hole, do not force it, as that might strip the threads inside the frame.
5. Dab a tiny bit of clear nail polish on the hinge screw once you’ve tightened it to hold the screw in place. Let dry.
6. If the metal hinge has broken off the frame, wash both surfaces and scrape away any paint or old glue. Then use a toothpick to dab fast-bonding glue to the break. Hold the pieces in place for 60 seconds to allow the glue to dry.
7. If the earpiece keeps slipping off the frame or has broken off, re-adhere it with fast-bonding glue. If you get the glue on your skin, wipe it off with acetone-based nail-polish remover.

C.   How to Repair Eyeglasses With a Broken Bridge
Repair the broken bridge on your eyeglasses.
The bridge of your eyeglasses provides nearly 90 percent of the weight of your eyeglasses. So when the bridge breaks, your eyeglasses will be useless. The bridge is vulnerable to breakage, and permanent repairs are difficult to make on your own. A professional should make permanent repairs to eyeglasses; otherwise your vision can be impaired. You can make temporary repairs however, until you can take your glasses to an optician or replace them with a new pair of eyeglasses.
Things you’ll need:
•  Adhesive tape
•   Glue gun and glue stick
•  Super Glue or Gorilla Glue
•  Scissors
•  Aluminum foil
Procedure
1.  Wrap the bridge of your eyeglasses in adhesive tape or a hypo-allergenic tape that won’t irritate sensitive skin. Cut a one-inch section of tape with scissors. Hold the bridge together with one hand while your wrap the tape carefully with the other around the broken bridge. Overlap the tape tightly as you wrap it.
2.  Glue the bridge of your eyeglasses together with a hot glue gun and glue stick so that the break won’t be so visible. Put a glue stick in the glue gun and plug it in. Set the glasses on a heat-proof surface, like a piece of aluminum foil. Wait until the glue stick has begun to melt in the glue gun. You can tell by pressing the trigger; you should see some glue coming from the nozzle. Hold the bridge together with one hand while pressing the trigger on the glue gun and applying hot glue to the broken ends of the bridge. Hold the bridge in place with both hands, and press together for one minute or until the glue dries.
3.  Glue the bridge of your eyeglasses together with Superglue, Gorilla Glue or other semi-permanent glue that works on plastic. Hold the glasses together with one hand over a piece of aluminum foil while squeezing glue on the broken bridge. Hold the bridge together with both hands for about one minute until the glue dries.

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Emergency Glasses
Paddling Net, by Tom Watson
http://www.paddling.net/guidelines/showArticle.html?269
Without glasses, my entire mid to long-distance view is fuzzier than green bologna in the back of the ‘frig. If I were to lose or damage my glasses on a kayaking trip, I would be dead in the water as far as being able to do many activities. I am therefore diligent in bringing an extra pair – even if the prescription is a bit old – on a trip, just in case!
But what can you do should you lose or destroy the only spectacles you have? A classic Twilight Zone episode features a lone survivor of a nuclear attack. He is an avid reader who finds years worth of books undamaged in the city library. Soon after stockpiling a decade’s supply of volumes he accidentally drops and breaks his thick reading glasses. Should you ever find yourself in a similar predicament (broken glasses, that is) don’t worry; if you have duct tape, some wire or a big needle (or a sharp hawthorn or locust thorn handy) you can create a usable pair of glasses.
These glasses will be similar to Eskimo “snow goggles” made of slats of bone or other materials. The wearer would look through a narrow, horizontal slit in the eye slat. This minimized the amount of sunlight and reflective glare entering the eye from the white snowy surface below.

These emergency glasses are designed to restore a bit of your sight by working on the principle of the pinhole camera. The pinhole captures only certain straight rays of light that focus on the retina of the eye (or on the film plane of a pinhole camera). Align several of these pin holes onto an opaque surface and look through it, and voila! – each hole becomes a tiny lens offering a clearer image.
•  The first step is to take a 12″ – 14″ piece of 2″ duct tape, fold it in half lengthwise and press the adhesive backs together.
•  Step two starts by finding the center of the strip and cutting out a nose notch, then measure equally out from the notch to the center of each eye. Mark each center for the field of holes you’ll be punching through the tape.
•  Next, get a piece of wire the size of a large paper clip. In an emergency consider a large thorn from a locust or hawthorn tree. The more perfectly round each hole is, and the cleaner the edges, the better it acts like the lens on a pinhole camera.
•  You want to make a field of holes at least as wide and high as your eye is round. My pair has eight rows with about 10 holes in each row. The rows are about 1/8″ across and the holes are about 1/8″ apart. I staggered each row of hole just like the stars on the American flag are staggered. I used the heated tip of a large needle to make the holes quickly and cleanly.
There are many materials out of which this eye strip can be made. As long as you can create rows of uniform, clean-edged holes, you can use anything stiff enough, yet pliable to be worn as a mask over the eyes. Doubling a strip of duct tape back on itself gives you a perfect thickness to create these glasses.
•  You then tie on a piece of string or shoelace to each outside corner of the “glasses” and then tie the mask in place across your eyes. Finally, adjust the ban so each eye can look directly out through the field of small holes. Once in place you should see things clearly although you might have little halos around images and other visual “ghosts” but they are clear enough that you can read what would otherwise be quite blurry.
Also of interest is that the farther away the viewed object is, the less the pinholes are noticed. The honeycomb effect of the holes is more noticeable when viewing a book held close to the eyes, because the eyes are focused just a short distance in front of the glasses. When looking at a distant TV, however, the holes are hardly visible at all since the eyes are focused much farther away. Also, because of the distance, you can view the entire TV screen through one hole, an obvious benefit.
Getting back to the snow blindness goggles, the duct tape technique can also be used to make a similar pair of lenses to be worn against glare off the water. It’s not the fanciest piece of eye wear, but it is crudely functional. Besides, when you’ve got nothing else, these “glasses” can save your day.

Some advantages that pinholes have over prescription glasses
http://www.myopia.org/ebook/17chapter12.htm
As we get into our 40’s and 50’s and inability to focus close develops, pinholes provide a simple and inexpensive solution for reading or other close work.
Bifocals or trifocals are designed to provide a clear image only at fixed distances. Pinholes provide an improved image at ALL distances. In many applications, such as alternating between watching TV and reading, they can easily take the place of those very expensive prescription lenses that are so lucrative for the anti-consumer eye doctor/optical industry alliance.
Multi-focal lenses provide a continuously variable curve that is supposed to give good vision at all distances. In reality, the distortion on either side of the center line is considerable and often too great for comfortable use. Pinholes eliminate this problem.
There is no need to continually throw away old glasses and buy new, stronger ones. Unless the pinholes break, they can be used an entire lifetime.
While pinholes are not as cheap as off-the-rack reading glasses, they are considerably cheaper than individual prescription glasses. For example, a person who is a little nearsighted but only needs clear distant vision for occasional TV viewing would find pinholes a cheaper solution than prescription glasses.
Off-the-rack reading glasses have the same lens power in each lens. Some people find these cheap glasses unsuitable because the refractive error in each eye is not the same. Pinholes are ideal for such people because these glasses do not require a similar refractive error in each eye.
There is a pincushion effect when looking through the edges of prescription glasses. That is, straight lines appear curved. This disturbing effect does not occur with pinholes.
When you lay prescription glasses down improperly, they can easily get scratched at the center of the lens, the very area you have to look through. Scratching pinholes has no effect on their performance.
Pinholes do not have to be cleaned of fingerprints and other marks that affect vision.
Using pinholes as sunglasses. Who could imagine that pinhole glasses could be better sunglasses than conventional sunglasses? Well, it’s true! This is such an intriguing and revolutionary concept that it deserves its own page. Don’t fail to read, Pinholes As Sunglasses.

Using pinholes as computer glasses. If you are looking for a way to reduce the visual stress of prolonged work at a computer, read Pinholes As Computer Glasses.
Pinholes cannot replace prescription glasses in every situation. People with over 6 diopters of myopia will probably not find pinholes useful, because pinholes cannot eliminate all of the blur. And just as it would be risky to wear ordinary glasses in situations where they could be broken and damage the eyes, there are situations where using pinholes instead of prescription glasses is not advisable. Use common sense and only wear the pinholes when the limited view does not pose a risk.

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