I spent 15 years as an optician, and I’ve worked with more eyeglass screws in a week than most people see in their life. The main reason that we don’t use rivets is so that the frame can be reused. The second reason though, is that screws don’t just come loose for no reason. It’s because they’ve been put under some kind of repeated stress, frequently caused by being put on and off with one hand. I heard my boss more than once have this conversation, (which I couldn’t have, because not being the boss I wasn’t allowed to say things that might make a patient mad):
“I can fix this screw so it can’t work loose, but you won’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“Because the screw being able to work loose protects your frame the same way a breaker protects your wiring. Next time you come in it will be because the screw broke.”
If the patient insisted, we had tools that made it trivial to brad the screw in, essentially turning it into a rivet. But sure enough, in a few weeks they’d be back in with a broken screw. Well, we could also replace the screw with a stronger screw that wouldn’t break, but then the next time it would be the frame that broke.
To really fix the problem, you have to figure out what’s causing the screw to work loose. Like I said, in a lot of cases it was the way the spectacles were handled. But in some cases it can be because the hinge screws are too tight, causing the whole frame to flex when folding and unfolding them.
Now the most common problem with hinge screws is the unthreaded part of the hinge getting corroded and grabbing the smooth part of the screw, causing the screw to turn with the hinge. Depending on how it grabs it can cause the screw to gradually work loose (most common) or to gradually get tighter until the hinge starts to freeze (which in turn can cause the eyewire screws to start working loose.) We had tools to easily deal with that as well.
I once had a pair of glasses where I’d managed to strip the threading out of one of the screw-holes. They were a fairly old pair, but still had some life left. So I took them to the optometrist and asked them to put a bolt through that hole. She took them away for a long time, so I think she tried to put a screw in anyway, but failed. The bolt made it stiffer, so other parts were getting the stress and would eventually break because of that. I don’t remember what happened to that pair.
I have one of those frames right now. Great glasses – they should be for what they charge for them.
I have found most places here in the US will do it for free also. My optometrist office does and I know that Walmart stores that have an Optical place in it will as well.
I’m definitely missing something here.
What are “broken parts of the frame”? Most glasses have plastic frames. How to they break? How does the part that goes over your ear break? Do people really replace this part?
Others have mentioned that a screw is needed to replace the lens. Can someone guide me to a picture of this? Don’t most lenses just pop in?
Also, is this such a rare occurrence? I have had this happen about 5 times since I started wearing glasses 6 years ago. And although I have several $1 cheater glasses from the dollar store, most often this happens with my $250 prescription glasses.
I looked in Walmart for eyeglass repair kits. Did not find any. Coincidentally, that is the store that charged me $10 to put in a new screw.
Thanks for all your posts.
Something I realised many years ago: take screw out, dab hole with clear nail varnish, put screw back in. Acts like invisible Locktite and stops the screw working loose, but breaks easily so you can get the screw out if needed.
Credentials: been wearing glasses since second grade.
Most lenses for prescription glasses with metal frames do not “pop in”, instead the frame is loosened, lens inserted, and frame tightened like a band around the lens.
Plastic frames (e.g “birth control glasses”) may indeed pop in. Most cheap sunglasses work that way.
In my experience, most opticians will be glad to replace the screw, clean and adjust the frames free of charge - they want your business next time you need to spend a couple hundred bucks for new glasses.
If Walmart charges $10, well, maybe that’s not the place to get your next pair.
On the other hand, they probably sell new glasses for half the price you’d pay at the opticians. Repair kits can be found at any “dollar store”.
gotta’ also take into account things get dirty … between lens and frame, particles 'n mold (from cleaning liquids) build up … screws are offered so a person can disassemble for cleaning purposes.
I’ve noticed that there seem to be different types of frame hinge. One of my expensive rx reading glasses has the kind where the screws work themselves loose if you fold and unfold the glasses, like putting them into the travel case and getting them out again. Even Loctite didn’t fix them, so I ended up having to buy another pair so that I don’t have to fold them as often. I keep the annoying pair at work, just laid gently on my desk.
My other pair, I don’t know what the hinges are like but the screws never come out. I fold these into the travel case a lot and carry them around with me in my purse. IMO this is the way glasses should be. Otherwise, why bother having a travel case for them?
My Maui Jim sunglasses are also problem free, and specific to the quote above, have a double hinge, so that they flex in two directions. They fold into the travel case, but they also bend slightly the other way which makes them easy to take off with one hand without damage. So why aren’t all glasses hinged like this, to avoid the problem altogether?
I had a pair with spring-hinges a couple years ago. One day I noticed that one of the screws had sheared off. The earpiece on that side had been wiggling up and down and twisting in a annoying way and looking closely, I could see there was only half of the screw in the hinge. I took out my trusty repair kit to replace the screw and oops.
Has anyone here successfully replaced a spring-hinge screw? LOL.
The Walmart I shop in has repair kits next to the register. They also replaced the screw for free for my DH. Sorry your Walmart was not helpful.
As for the part breaking, yes the ear piece can break (especially if you’re a kid) and it’s nice to be able to get a new one and take out the screw to replace it instead of buying a whole new pair of glasses. And as someone else explained to you, no, most lenses don’t “pop” in.
You can move your eyes, but you wont be able to see in focus through the glasses when you do. The only place where the lenses are ground for close work, is in the center. The rest of the lens is either blank ground, or made for distance work.
You apparently don’t have any male teenagers in your life. In 11th grade, two of us girls needed our glasses replaced after the frames had been broken by our oh so delicate classmates: mine by a ball to the face (thankfully the bruises weren’t too bad), my classmate’s by a guy toying with the glasses she’d left on her desk and cracking one of the legs.
Also, it is possible to replace the whole frame and reuse one or both lenses, but only if you have a way to retrieve the lenses intact. Removing them from the usual screw-as-bolt-as-fastener frames is trivial.
I just gave up on trying to fix a pair of my wife’s cheap readers: the spring part of the temple is apparently under tension when they put the screw in, so if it falls out, you can’t put it back in since the holes don’t line up anymore. I thought of putting a thin screwdriver in from the bottom to align the hing parts while inserting the screw from the top, then I found that it isn’t a through hole.
That’s when I decided it wasn’t worth messing with the cheap glasses and tossed them.
Now that’s a term I haven’t heard in decades, since the military.
And I find it ironic that the general appearance of the government-issue glasses to which we applied the term, which could be described as “Buddy Holly glasses,” has become stylish to the hipster crowd.
So just to be clear, you mean the CLOSE UP portion of the progressives is only in the center (bottom)? Progressive or not, that’s true of many bifocals: Most of our visual “needs” aren’t close-up, so there’s basically a small inserted lens for the close-up work, and the rest of the field (including the straight ahead “resting” position and the sides/peripheral) where we might need to see and identify something quickly are ground for distance. Most folks don’t use the close-up portion while looking askance at things. The “inserted” lens may be either obvious (in classic bifocals) or blended with its containing distance lens (progressives), but in moderately expensive lenses, it still occupies a relatively small portion of the center bottom. This also makes the entire edge of the lens close to the same thickness, which is easier for fitting frames.
I doubt you’ll find a pair of full-width-close progressives, because it doesn’t really cost extra to get the “center only” feature (which most people prefer). But if you’re willing to go for classic bifocals, the “center only” lens costs more (or did, before computer controlling) and if you just look for a little bit cheaper lenses, you’ll find the ones that stretch the full width.