How do I properly adjust my wire frame glasses to make them comfortable and prevent them from slipping (like the salespeople in the eyeglass store usually do for me)? I am nowhere near an eyeglass shop and my glasses are driving me crazy.
Usually its the nose pieces that flatten out and need to be bent back up. Be careful.
This is a fine old art. Any glasses wearer should fiddle with them considerably to get them right.
Beats me why a cast for a broken bone is custom fitted for a few weeks, whereas glasses-for-life never seem to fit right and are sold on the basis of fashion, as if having lenses on your face looks clever or something. It always takes me a few hours over the first couple of weeks to get them right.
Some tips:
Use needlenose pliers to adjust the nose pieces, or special pliers whose jaws are narrow cones (I think they are sometimes called chain pliers and are sold to jewelers). The cones won’t nick the finish so much and are easy to form neat curves with.
If you can, support the glasses frames at the spot the nose pieces are welded on, so the weld does not carry the force of you bending them. You can do this extra nicely if you remove the lens first (by loosening the screws near the hinges with a jeweler’s screwdriver).
You can get these tools at Radio Shack or Sears.
You can adjust the earpieces more easily, usually just by bending with your fingers. If they have heavy plastic molded onto them, it may be easier to bend them without cracking the plastic if you warm them first. A whistling teakettle is ideal for this because it transfers heat very rapidly but is guaranteed never to get too hot or burn the plastic. You could also use a hair blow drier, but take note you don’t get the plastic hot enough to start smoking.
Here’s a refinement that probably has to wait till you can go to a glasses shop - if your nose pieces are at the wrong height, it is very hard to move them up and down and still keep the plastic pads oriented vertically. But eyeglasses shops also sell round pads that don’t have any preferential orientation. These are so cheap they sometimes just give them away when you ask. This made a world of difference for my nose, on which the bridge is unusually high!
PS - forgot two things -
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Don’t burn yourself. Well, I’m anonymous, so I guess you can if you want… it just seems weird not putting extravagant and unnecessary warnings on this… thank god I never said to use matches…
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The only effective way to judge how hard you can twist the little nose pieces without breaking the welds seems to be to break them, and then go less far the next time.