I noticed when I buy clear safety glasses (I have several pairs) they don’t have very good clarity to them and seem to stop light transmission to some degree. They also get a lot of glare on them. I don’t wear prescription glasses but I have friends that do I have looked through their glasses and the plastic they are made from has very good light transmission and is extremely clear. They also seem to get almost no glare. I’m wondering if you can buy safety glasses with the same quality lenses that they make prescription glasses from
Go to or call a sears optical or walmart vision center. I bet they can help you out. You will pay more than the cheap safety glasses you get at hardware stores, but I would imagine it is worth it.
I’m not looking to spend $100 on it, besides would it have the same safety rating against impact?
I wear prescription safety glasses (with detachable side shields). I bought them at a mall DOC glasses store. My eye doctor’s office also sells prescription safety glasses. Choose a store, go in and tell them you’re interested in safety glasses.
Doubtful you’ll find them less than $100, though. The frames cost more than the lenses did.
Are you buying the “goggle” style? That have a soft surround with a flat front lens?
Any ways, at HD and Lowes you can find disposable dafety glasses that are both clear and have an UV coating on them that helps to a certain degree as an AR coating. They are ANSI and/or OSHA rated. I typically wear these for motorcycle riding as they are extremely slim and fit right under the padding of the helmet. They usually come in sets of 2, 3, 5, etc. Depending on what they buy. I’m also pretty picky about stuff like this so I know what you mean about the light decrease and the glare.
If you want to go all out, you can go to a motorcycle shop and buy yourself a set of clear riding glasses. They will definately be clear, most are anti-fog, and have UV and AR coatings. Some will even have replaceable lenses in case they get scratched. Theyt won’t be OSHA rated but they will have ANSI ratings.
is it possible that prescription glasses are simply made from a higher quality polycarbonate?
MY EYES! The goggles do NOTHING!!
Ditto, I wear prescription safety glasses at work. No difference in visibility between these and my normal glasses. The big downside is that my employer will only pay for lenses and frames from Walmart (Corporate buying agreement) so they’re ugly as fuck. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying a decent looking pair with my own money as I do wear these things when I visit customers (I think you can use HSA funds for this) but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.
Go to Lowes our Home Depot and pick up a pair of DeWalt safety glasses. They run about $20 a pair, but are the best safety glasses I’ve ever used. You can get them in either clear or tinted. They look like stylish sun glasses, they’re comfortable and distortion free. The tinted ones I use are nice enough that I use them as many sunglasses everyday.
Ordinary safety glasses are usually polycarbonate. The downside of polycarbonate, is that despite being quite tough in resisting mechanical damage, and not shattering, it actually scratches easily, and is attacked by a lot of common solvents. High quality safety glasses can be made from Trivex, which is both strong and much more scratch resistant, and as an added bonus, resistant to most common, and many industrial, solvents - so much so that you can clean Trivex lenses in acetone, something that would dissolve polycarbonate. Trivex isn’t quite as good as polycarbonate for impact resistance, but on all other measures it is significantly better.
When it comes to prescription glasses, Trivex beats polycarbonate handily, as it also has a much better Abbe number, and thus lower chromatic aberration. Its Abbe number isn’t quite as good as CR39, but you can’t make safety glasses out of CR39, it has very poor mechanical strength.
Try a gun store, and look at shooting glasses.
That’s what I have and I love them. Except, I only paid $4 for mine on Amazon.
I love my Bolle glasses, not sure if you can get them in the states but they are as clear as my reading glasses and from memory they were about $30.
Well that explains it. I thought my Oakley sunglasses scratched ridiculously easily.
Does anyone have any extra-large safety glasses to recommend?
Suburban Plankton’s suggestion about checking out a gun store is good. The need for both clarity and protection is such that there are shooter’s glasses made from Trivex.
For ordinary sunglasses, apparently Maui Jim uses their own version of Trivex. I can atest that they are remarkable in both their clarity and scratch resistance. Indeed uncannily so. The anti-reflective coatings also very good.
A bit off topic, but to answer the question above about prescription glasses, the default material is CR39, which has a range of very nice properties, but impact resistance is not one of them. It does have a very good Abbe number, so clarity is good. Polycarbonate is horrid, but cheap, and strong, so it can be used in rimless glasses. Trivex is more expensive but both strong and has good clarity. Where you get into trouble is when you need optically strong glasses, and you are forced towards higher refractive index materials in order to get the optical power without seriously thick lenses. Abbe number goes worse with higher refractive index, and choice of materials is restricted. Also complicating matters is the ability of the material to take a dye if you want a tint.
My reading glasses are Trivex, and my sunglasses are Maui Jim, and thus also a form of Trivex. It seems to be generally really nice stuff.