Is it possible to repair minor scratches in plastic eyeglass lenses, or do I have to bite the bullet and buy (at the least) new lenses for my glasses, or perhaps new glasses entirely?
The story- I was at a friend’s house and fell asleep, and they tried to do me a favor and removed my glasses and put them on the table for me. Unfortunately, not being a person who wore glasses, they put them lens-side down, and there are now scratches on the lenses. They’re not awful, but I notice them and they really are bugging me.
I’m wondering if there’s something I could do, perhaps similiar to what people do to remove scratches from CD’s, to remove the scratches.
Something that might make this impossible though is that I do have UV coating on my lenses… that would probably come off unevenly with any kind of treatment.
You can use NevR-Dull polishing wadding to buff out the scratches, but you’ll remove any coatings on the lenses and change the way they refract light at least slightly.
I asked the same question at Lenscrafters, where I bought mine. I had mine resting on the top of my head, and when I bent over they fell off and landed lens side down on the sidewalk. They told me there was nothing they could do.
Of course they had something to gain by selling me new lenses, but I got the sense from the guy that I was truly SOL.
Polishing out scratches is a pain in the neck (and it will, as stated above, polish off the coatings). Polishing plastic (rather than glass) is a double pain in the neck.
1.) Are you sure it’s scratched and not dirty? Polycarbonate lenses, because they can scratch so easily, are typically coated with a thin, tough coating to prevent scratches. I know – a couple of lifetimes ago the company I worked for did precisely this, and I’ve looked into several such protective coatings myself. You shouldn’t be able to easily scratch such a coated optic (although you could possibly scratch the AR coating on top of that protective coating) Try a good and careful cleaning first.
2.) If the lenses are truly scratched (or the Anto-Reflection (AR) coating), you’re gonna have to replace.
3.) In the meantime, I notice somebody selling a product that “miraculously” heals scratches. This has to be some sort of index-matching (or almost-matching) stuff that’s filling in the scratches and making them invisible. At least until it gets dirty or dries out or whatever. It would be a temporary fix, but would keep your current glasses from annoying you until you got a new set. (If you can’t find this stuff, maybe you could try some non-drying very clear liquid, like baby oil, as a stopgap)
Novus #1 polish might work small wonders at the expense of any anti-reflective coatings. (The stuff will put a high shine on pretty much any smooth plastic)
I’ve not tried it on lenses, but it works minor miracles on things like old phones, turntable covers and scratched CDs.
