Mine have built a decent number of very small scratches and they’re getting annoying so I’d like to get rid if at all possible.
I’ve seen various things suggested including:
- lens scratch repair kit (reviews don’t look great on amazon)
- baking soda paste
- non-abrasive toothpaste
- furniture polish (temporarily fills in the scratch from what I can tell)
I’m reluctant to try any of them without some first hand accounts. No lens coating on these so no worries there.
Thank you in advance!
edit: I just want to say thanks very much to everyone. I ended up getting my prescription emailed to me and buying a new pair for €17 (about $19 USD) delivered on a site that one helpful poster linked. Looks like they will take about 3 weeks to get here so I’ll put up with the scratchy ones until they get here.
When they do arrive I will take some pictures and test the various methods I found online then post up what works and what wrecks the lenses.
Afaik you would destroy the coating on modern lenses, making it worse. That’s why I am intensely careful with mine, I only carefully wash them under warm water (not hot) with dish soap without additives, and then use a microfibre cloth to dry. Water and dish soap first to remove anything that could scratch, even microscopic stuff.
After around 4 years of this, mine are almost as good as new still.
Ah unfortunately they’ve taken a bit of abuse over the years. Nothing major so the scratches are really tiny but enough of them have built up from rough and tumble with the kids etc. that they’re a constant annoyance now. :(
I do actually do the dishsoap / warm water thing myself and find it great.
These were my backup pair on a 2 for 1 offer so I didn’t get any lens coating / thinner lens thing on them.
I’ve done it before, using a Dremel tool with a polishing wheel and wax polishing compound, then toothpaste on a rag.
It took me two days, per lens to get anything close to usably clear. So I hate to say it, but you’re probably better off getting new lenses.
TL;DR the next part, shit used to be made to last…
Or, if you hit a dumb stroke of luck like I recently did, get some vintage glasses made in the 1980s. It’s very rare that I stumble into prescription glasses that match my prescription, but I accidentally came across a perfect matching pair that was manufactured around 1988, and they just refuse to scratch!
Yes, that’s almost impossible to stumble across, but you never know what you might find in a thrift store or flea market.
two days, per lens
HOLY MOLY! Fair play to you for the perseverance though.
That’s because they’re glass lenses. The plastic whatever crap is just another form of planned obsolescence.
Nope, can confirm 100%, they’re plastic. I just tested the edge with a razor blade, 100% plastic, made before the modern day enshittification and planned obsolescence era.
Damn. I didn’t think they used plastic back in the day, I assumed it was a modern thing. Well. You know what they say about assume. Thx for the correction.
Could a local optician sort it?
You know, this is so blindingly obvious I never thought of it. Haha! Great idea.
edit: I actually can’t believe I didn’t think of this. Chuckling away to myself here.
edit 2: I looked up the opticians I bought from and they have a page about scratches that says they can’t unfortunately. :( It recommends new lenses. Not sure if that’s profit motive or not though.
my undaeratanding is that lens material is so optically tuned for weight that removal of any amount of material makes a difference to the focusing - not to mention the possible coatings on the lens. this is what I have been told, I have no other evidence.
blindingly obvious
Perfect.
Costco’s optometrist said they couldn’t buff out the scratches on mine since they don’t actually use glass anymore. They use polycarbonate lenses which are strong and won’t shatter if broken (I’ve definitely tested this on accident…)
Stuff like toothpaste is way too coarse for things like this. It isn’t something I have tried as I don’t wear glasses but have you considered trying something like a rubbing compound used during paintwork on cars etc?
It is basically a fine grade liquid sandpaper and is used to buff up the final laquer coat to a good shine.
Pretty sure you can get different grit levels and may require some elbow grease but may be an option worth looking at?
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You pay more initially, and have to look around more for it, but glass lenses hold up. Drop them. Stick them in your pocket with your car keys and pens. Clean them with whatever. Lose the case on day one. And they stay scratch free. For years.
Granted, this is only tenable if you have a “lighter” prescription.
I remove mine for close up stuff and thus my prescription has remained the same for over 20 years. I get new glasses not because the lenses scratch up, but because the frames break. I average new glasses every 8-10yrs.
Glass lenses.
I’ve never even been offered glass lenses. I thought they were phased out so that people would never get broken glass in their eyes.
I’m been smacked in the face and dropped them multiple times on concrete, industrial linoleum tile, and hardwoods. Never even seen a crack. I’m sure there are things that can do so, like an airbag exploding in your face, but I can’t imagine shattered broken milled plastic not being dangerous as well.
You have to ask for glass. They bury it in favor of the garbage that scratches up over time.
Quality plastic lenses can last that long. Often being able to keep glasses that long depends most on the stability of your prescription, and not going for bottom of the barrel coatings.
Glass lenses are harder to scratch, but are heavier for the same prescription and if you get hit in the face can shatter into shards that are quite damaging to the eyes.
If getting hit in the face is not a risk for you and you dont mind the extra weight go for it, but it’s worth noting there are some downsides as well.
That’s why I said it depends on how light your prescription is. The husband has coke bottle lenses and cannot do glass. But he has to use the case. He has to use a special cloth to clean the lenses. He has to check against cleaning chemicals. He has to be very careful or they scratch, doesn’t matter what “special coating” is there. Those lenses do scratch up.
I’m less than -2 in both eyes so the weight doesn’t matter so much for me. I drop mine on the (bacterial lava) floor of a patient care area and I can grab whatever industrial, don’t use bare hands, wipe is available to purge the lenses of bacterial and viral load. And then stick them loose in a pocket with keys, pens, loose change, scissors, and they come out after a couple hours of that scratch free.
I get hit in the face. For decades. And decades of dropping them on concrete and everywhere else. No issues, breaks, or scratches thus far.
What are the stats on that? Are they a reality for the curved milled glass lens? Or is it a falsehood used to sell planned obsolescence lenses?
I recently viewed and saved a post regarding modern day lens coatings. Took me a bit to find it…
https://lemmy.world/post/18532120
There’s also a particular comment in that thread that says what chemical they use to remove that coating. Check back soon and I’ll reply to this comment with a link to that particular comment…
Addendum, found the comment of interest…
I don’t think it would work in the slightest either way but rather than buff them out, maybe find something to fill in the scratches.
Yeah one of the recommended things I saw was furniture polish or car wax to fill them in. Both would only be temporary. Based on the replies so far I may give this a whirl as I don’t see it being damaging.
You’d need to be able to replace the coatings on them. The scratch would likely be the easier part. The coatings might be hard to get. Most sold commercially are not as permanent and industrial ones are either very proprietary or require expensive equipment that wouldn’t be worth it for a one pair of lenses.
I tried it once. It didn’t go well
After you get your replacement lens, you can also try putting a drop of resin and wiping it away. In theory the resin should fill the crack with a transparent material and the heal the blemish. Then you “buff it” by removing excess liquid before it cures. But as others mentioned there is coating and more specifically glass treatment that may cause issues, but that’s the process for auto class repair (they usually drill out a hole around it first to prevent further spreading but that sounds worse here). Those kits can be pretty cheap
I don’t know about outer coatings, but I always wondered if lapping film would work on glass lenses. Think super fine sandpaper for fiber optic cables.
Don’t have a solution, want to leave this here for the advice
