It's time for some new eyes!

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Location
Oliver Springs, TN
I have never need glasses, my eyesight has always been 20/20 or better. At my last eye exam the doc told me I'm at that age where I'll probably be needing some reading glasses before long. I've noticed over the past few months the marks on the tape are starting to move around on me, and when I read my arms need to be about two inches longer. I picked up a set of reading glasses at the drug store and they have really helped for the reading part. My question is what do y'all do for glasses in the shop?
 
John welcome to the club.:) The need to wear glasses has been my single toughest thing to ever accept.
In the shop i wear my prescribed glasses
even though i risk getting them scratched.
Thing is those "reading" glasses at the drug store are not neccessary a match for your eyes so i dont risk straining one eye to the benefit of the other.

Best if luck.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
 
Bifocals (progressive) from get up time to bed time ever since I was 16:eek: in the shop since I can not find safety glasses to go over the prescription ones, a full face shield when needed in the shop. Some day I will spring for prescription safety glasses.
 
I have used the DeWalt's Reinforcer RX Bifocal safety glasses for several years now.

safetyglassesusa_2195_59671711
 
I have the bifocal safety glasses too, but I find in the cool weather, they fog up a lot, so I wear my regular reading glasses, but if I'm doing something where I need more protection, I put on the safety glasses or face shield.

I really like these reading glasses.....

http://impulseclics.com/

89276_cle.jpg
I find they work great for me, as I carry heavy stuff all the time, any reading glasses on a string around your neck hang down too far and I would destroy them. When you are not using them, they are out of the way but when you need them they are right there, not in a pocket in a holder etc.

Cheers!

Oh yeah, you will look really cool in them........

SAM%20JACKSON.jpg


TOM%20SILVA%20THIS%20OLD%20HOUSE.jpg


:thumb:
 
Thanks for the suggestion guys. After seeing Tom in Stu's post I remember seeing Richard Trethewey wearing a pair of those in one episode and thinking that those are cool.
 
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I have never need glasses, my eyesight has always been 20/20 or better. At my last eye exam the doc told me I'm at that age where I'll probably be needing some reading glasses before long. I've noticed over the past few months the marks on the tape are starting to move around on me, and when I read my arms need to be about two inches longer. I picked up a set of reading glasses at the drug store and they have really helped for the reading part. My question is what do y'all do for glasses in the shop?

Hi from your FWW eye doc,

Statistically, if you have 20/20 uncorrected, you will fall into the "Hey, I gotta move it further away to see it." category at age 43 1/2, Be glad you have lived long enough to enjoy this problem. Also I hope that you live long enough to need cataract surgery. The preceding two problems happen to all humans who live long enough. The age of cataract onset varies drastically however according to your health, where you live, who your parents are, what you eat, how much water you drink, how much you are out in the sun not wearing sunglasses and a few thousand other things.

Rob, as a group we live longer now so there are many more people who need to wear glasses. They have become similar to shoes in that almost everyone has a pair.

Tom. That face shield is a hundred miles from being as effective as a pair of safety glasses. If you were my son, I would twist your arm to get safety glasses. Get them with side shields. Get them from an eye doc who has many sample frames for you to try. If the doc is trying to fit you from a picture of safety glasses or he only has 5 samples, he/she is not into safety glasses and will miss a lot of the subtleties that make for a happy safety glasses wearer.

You will want the reading part of the Rx focused at 16inches (NOT the 13 inches many docs fit to). 13 inches is just plain too short for woodworking. The shorter the focal length, the smaller the depth of field (How close you can see clearly to how far you can see clearly through that portion of the lens.). 13 in will not give you enough depth of field---you will find yourself leaning over the drill press, lathe, scroll saw, etc. in order to see.

The "No line" bifocals are fine for general living (reading the paper, using a screwdriver, going to the movies, driving your car, etc.), however they do cause some distortions that may drive you crazy if you do Fine Woodworking (furniture, cabinets, boxes, etc.). If you take a picture through a no line bifocal you will see that lines are not straight---It is the nature of the beast. In general expensive ones are better than cheaper ones. VERY expensive ones are VERY much better. However that won't matter to most of us because the lenses are so expensive that you would not think of wearing them in the shop---figure over $550.oo just for the lenses.

A straight top bifocal (25mm wide) will keep your lines straight and give you vision a bit clearer than $550.oo no line. Do not pay for a wider bifocal. You will not use that part of the lens. I know it sounds like you would, but you won't. When something get that far to the side (blue print, table top, etc.) you head will turn automatically because your nose is now cutting off part of your field of vision. If your head did not turn you depth perception would drop drastically.

If there is over +1.50 diopters of power above the distance perscriptipn you will need to go to a trifocal to see well from about 20 inches to 3 feet or more (there is a lot of wood working going on in that range). A no line bifocal covers that distance automatically, however not as clearly.

A pair of glasses cannot legally be called "Safety glasses" unless the lenses are in a Safety Frame. Even though it does not break the lens, it does not do you much good if something hits your glasses, knocks the lens back so it can act like an ice cream scoop. The frame has to hold that lens---you really want it to hold that lens.

Stuart, Most drug stores carry glasses lens cleaner that prevents steaming lenses. It works great; it is cheap. A "Face Shield" is NOT a Safety lens. You are supposed to wear safety glasses behind the face shield. It does not matter what that shield is made of---It is NOT a safety lens.

Statistically far more glasses are damaged off of a person instead of on their nose where they belong. Have a multi-focal (Bifocal, Trifocal, No-line) and leave it on your face. If you damage it, be glad it wasn't your eyeball that got damaged. Unless your glasses are a terrible misfit they are not going to fall off of your face---but they sure can and do fall out of pockets. On your face the lenses are not going to get abraded unless you were in real danger. The sure get abraded if you put them in a pocket with chips, screws, tools, etc. They also get abraded if you don't clean them before you wipe them. I don't know about you but all kinds of stuff ends up in my pockets when I work in the shop.

Wearing safety glasses on a cord around your neck may be cool; but for eye protection that's not so hot.

Anyone: Do not hesitate to PM me if you have questions. Jim C Bradley.

Enjoy,

JimB
 
Jim i thank you for this post and totally appreciate every word of it. I wish you were an eye doc in my neighborhood. I would be in the lineup outside your door in a flash.
Its time for me to find a new eye doc, now i have some insight into what i need to hear from the "right" one.
Thanks again.

Btw what are your thoughts on the aspects of the various corrective eye surgeries. We have a group in the greater Toronto area advertising this stuff . When i looked up what they offer there is supposedly a method they have to correct "reading glasses" need.
They say upfront it only lasts x many years and will need doing again. Although they do laser corrective type operations this particular corrective op does not involve laser.

You have any thoughts on these surgeries?



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john i too had that problem and fought it for some time with the walmart readers but they get so you can see the real close stuff,, i have a prescription pair of bifocals that allow me to see threw the top with some kind of zoom and then if i need to get ral close i can look threw the cut part where the zoom is higher they have safty glass lenses and side sheilds.. after while you get past the : "i have to wear these" and for general use i can get by with none but the reading and computer work needs the glasses.. i like the magnetic oneslike stu showed,, toni from spain had a pair but i have never found a source and they are kinda preppy for the likes of me and my surroundings..also need to mention as well that the part where jim says the focal length is spot on!!! just had to go back again to get a new set of lookers and the reason was the eye doc left it as the short version and i couldnt see the monitor clear enough to do my day job and the sides of the monitor went in at th top at least 3/4" out of square.. i wasnt happy.. but got them redone for free and now i can see to type again
 
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I have some plastic bifocal drugstore glasses that I used for years. I didn't need any correction for distance, so the main part of the lens was good protection. The lower part is 1.25, which is all I needed to see detail up close better. My eyes have changed somewhat in the past couple of years, so I can now see up close without correction most of the time. Nowadays, when I need eye protection in the shop, I can use standard safety glasses.
 
Hi from your FWW eye doc,
...
A "Face Shield" is NOT a Safety lens. You are supposed to wear safety glasses behind the face shield. It does not matter what that shield is made of---It is NOT a safety lens.

:wave: Hi Jim.

I have never, ever, heard that about face shields. :dunno: Maybe that's cuz I'm not a turner and those folks seem more to be the face shield users. Why is it not sufficient protection? Is it not made of the right plastic? Or is does it have to do with those comments about the frame needing to be strong also.

I'm in my late 40s and only picked up my first set of glasses 2 yrs ago, but not for reading, for distance. It does make driving a lot more enjoyable.
(The optometrist joked with me that there was no point in my buying a new TV, since I was not capable of seeing HD...)
But I dread the inevitable changes that will probably force me into reading glasses... Sitting at a computer all day as I do means that bifocals will likely drive me bonkers, so I expect I'll be like my colleague who juggles 2-3 sets of glasses all day.

On the other hand I'm very fortunate to have a good friend who just started her (2nd) career as an optician and she is a big help.
I need to see her soon, after I visit the optometrist and get my RX updated...
 
Art, one reason that I can think of is that turners seldom lift up the face shield to have a close up view of the piece they are working on. Some times they forget to drop down the face shield again.
 
Granted I'm prejudiced by birth but, I traveled a lot during my career and used eye docs in various areas. I can safely say that like any other profession, there are good ones, average ones and bad ones. If you don't like the service, go elsewhere till you find what you're after. Once you become bespectacled, a good relation with a good optometrist will circumvent a lot of disappointments. *** Public Service Announcement Over *** :).

The period where I only needed glasses part of the time was the most bothersome in my eyeglass wearing history. I started late in life in needing a little assist and it took several years to get to where I wore them regularly. I circumvented the on again, off again issue early by working with the doc on a lens size (the round "John Lennon" style was popular then) that would allow a no prescription top area and correction below similar to a bifocal. This meant I could just put them on and not worry about it. Eventually I needed a little help for distance viewing as well and now wear trifocals. My personality doesn't deal well with the "soft focal" area in transition lenses; other folks love them. Neither is right or wrong.

For the shop I fooled with goggles and safety "glasses" that fit over my frames but, finally got tired of the fuss and discomfort and had a pair of prescription safety glasses made. These are different from my "street" glasses as they have focal areas at about arms length (like where the material meets the cutter on most operations) and a closer focal point for reading rulers and marking things. Safety glasses are engineered very differently than other frames. If your doc offers to put safety lenses in your Calvin Kline frames, go elsewhere; he's dangerous. In the end, prescription shop glasses have been a blessing and I will stick with 'em. YMMV.
 
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In the end, prescription shop glasses have been a blessing and I will stick with 'em. YMMV.[/QUOTE]

yup.. i fully agree,, once i got mine i was hooked..to be able to see the little tiny marks again to go just smidge and see it move is wonderful.
 
I hope that no one minds that I dig up this old thread :thumb:

I'm in the market for some Dungeon Safety Glasses. I should have done this a LONG time ago, but recently my prescription has changed a bit, and I need to buy new reading glasses. I have ones now that are all prescription, the whole lens is +1.50 Right and +1.75 left, that needs to be changed a bit, but What I want is I guess a trifocal? My eyesight is fine for driving, looking across the street etc, and I'm OK out to say 3 feet, but closer than that I need a prescription. I guess I want clear glass for straight ahead and then two strengths for close and really close work. The glasses I have now are good for about 35cm/13.77" I guess I'd like some thing closer for looking at stuff close up, more like 20cm/8" and then something a bit further away like 50cm/20" or am I nuts? :rolleyes:

Paging Dr. Bradley :)

A VERY good friend is an opthamologist, in fact she is a professor at a local university hospital, I went to her and got a prescription she checked my eyes but she knows nothing about safety glasses etc. She handed me off to one of her junior doctors who did his best but could only find some info online and print it out for me. Not much help at all. I think I'll be ordering online from the US. Safety concerns are not that big still here in Japan, on the very largest companies, think Toyota etc, would even bother with prescription safety glasses for their workers, and they do it in house.

I'm a bit stuck, and asking for help.

Cheers!
 
Gee, stuart, you look jusst like Samuel L. Jackson! Do you get a lot of requests for autographs?

John, I wear bifocals - No choice because I suffer from Grave's disease ahd have double vision without my glasses. Since the cataract surgery I could do without glasses except for that, though I would still need glasses for reading. I also have diabetic retinopathy and that has affected my visual acuity somewhat. However, to answer your question, I wear the bifocals all the time and have a pair of safety goggles that I put over them if I expect anything to be flying about. I`ve worn glasses since I was 11, so I`m quite used to them.
 
I have some plastic bifocal drugstore glasses that I used for years. I didn't need any correction for distance, so the main part of the lens was good protection. The lower part is 1.25, which is all I needed to see detail up close better. My eyes have changed somewhat in the past couple of years, so I can now see up close without correction most of the time. Nowadays, when I need eye protection in the shop, I can use standard safety glasses.

I just have to say: Those drug store glasses give you ZERO protection (well maybe a bit of protection from dust). A pair of lenses cannot be considered the least amount of protection unless they are in a safety frame. It takes very little pressure to pop a lens out of a regular frame. If your glasses are hit, the lens can/probably will come out. Call it Eye Scoop---like Ice Cream scoop. If the lens breaks, think about a broken window---DANG IT GUYS AND GALS, ONLY SAFETY GLASSES ARE GOING TO GIVE YOU EYE PROTECTION. Please repeat that to yourself 100 times.

FWW does not need blind woodworkers!

JimB
 
:wave: Hi Jim.

I have never, ever, heard that about face shields. :dunno: Maybe that's cuz I'm not a turner and those folks seem more to be the face shield users. Why is it not sufficient protection? Is it not made of the right plastic? Or is does it have to do with those comments about the frame needing to be strong also.

I'm in my late 40s and only picked up my first set of glasses 2 yrs ago, but not for reading, for distance. It does make driving a lot more enjoyable.
(The optometrist joked with me that there was no point in my buying a new TV, since I was not capable of seeing HD...)
But I dread the inevitable changes that will probably force me into reading glasses... Sitting at a computer all day as I do means that bifocals will likely drive me bonkers, so I expect I'll be like my colleague who juggles 2-3 sets of glasses all day.

On the other hand I'm very fortunate to have a good friend who just started her (2nd) career as an optician and she is a big help.
I need to see her soon, after I visit the optometrist and get my RX updated...

THINK OF YOUR SAFETY GLASSES AS ANOTHER TOOL! A tool that lets you see grain, scribe marks, blemishes, etc. better AND protects your eyes. Your regular glasses are probably impact resistant. This is fine if someone bumps you with their elbow. However, they do not even vaguely protect you from the stuff that can come at you in a woodworking shop. Also the frame will probably let the lens come out to get you.

Regular bifocals are NOT good for extended computer work. They will force you to hold your head in an unnatural position if your Add is over 1.50 (your eye doc will know what that means) (That 1.50 is like the number 1.50 you see on drug store glasses). The head tilting is good for the chiropractors, not you. The "No-line" bifocal type lenses are a bit better for computer. You do not have to tilt your chin up in order to see the screen. However, they do give you a narrow side-to-side field of vision. This means you have to turn your head to see clearly on one side of the screen and then look at the other side. You just sit there for hours shaking your head like "no-no."

My computer glasses are 25 or 28mm straight top bifocals. The top of the lens is focused on the computer screen. The bottom part is focused at 16 inches where most people read, trim their fingernails, etc. If you decide to walk around with these lenses on, the far distance will be blurred. However, they can stay on if you are just going to the bathroom or to a file cabinet or go get a different chisel. I wear them for hours at a time in the shop without removing them. But, get in your car with them on and you will see fuzzy stop signs down the road.

Another verygood solution for the computer screen is the 7 by 28mm straight top trifocal. These lenses work well at all distances and can be worn any place that you won't look silly wearing safety glasses. Like everything else in this world they also have some negative points. At the computer screen your field of vision will be clear across the screen but about 6 or 7 inches vertically. I do not find this to be a problem---I really do not like to have to turn my head side to side like the no-lines force you to do. With the trifocal I can read the print, spread sheet, etc. clear across the screen. After reading a few paragraphs I tilt my head slightly and am ready for a few more. With the no line you have to move your head with every line.

WARNING: OPTICAL PEOPLE WHO DO NOT FIT MANY "STRAIGHT LINE" TRIFOCALS WILL FIT THEM TOO LOW. If too low, they are a real pain.

I am being interrupted. I will get back to this later.

Enjoy,

JimB

OK, I am back. It seems like I pretty much said it. If you have any questions PM me---Jim C Bradley

Well, here I am again. With trifocals you want the top line fit just below the bottom of the pupil margin. Have them take the reading for the position of the line in normal light. If it is really bright, they may make the line a bit too high because your pupils will get smaller in bright light. It will take you about a week to become totally efficient with the lenses. The first day or two the line will seem to be in the middle of everything. The pay off is that all of the rest of your life, you will do less unnecessary head movement and you won't have to get your head in strange positions to see what you wish to see.
 
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