Prescription spectacles

Over the last six months, I’ve had many a long discussion with fellow ECP (eye care providers): opticians, dispensers, OD’s and MD’s. They are all supportive of the fact that we offer specialized protective eyewear for glassworking, but are seriously concerned about the ability of the patient (you) to order these medical devices online without the support that the ECP can and does provide.

Their major issue is with the correct pupillary distance measurements as well as segment heights and proper fitting. I’ve been debating what to do with my management team and the solution appears to be to set up a “portal” for the ECP to order your spectacles online for you and have them delivered to them for proper dispensing and fitting. Over the next couple of weeks I will be phasing in the new system for ECP direct orders and cutting off retail sales of prescription eyewear.

If you currently do not have an ECP in your area, please let me know via e-mail ( m.aurelius@auralens.com ) and I will make inquiries for you, and get you names of available ECP’s in your area.

Economic issues have required changes

As you may have noticed, we are no longer selling cerium oxide. For about the past six to nine months, the world-wide supplies of cerium have dropped significantly. This is due to export restrictions placed by China on raw materials. They have also placed rather large tariffs on all outbound shipments of some of the more “precious” raw materials. The combination of factors has caused our cost to skyrocket by 750%. Needless to say, we no longer have excess polish that we can afford to sell.

About the same time (roughly six to nine months ago) Schott in Germany shut down their welding glass (float glass) manufacturing processing plant. This was due (they claimed) to low demand for the product. Schott was the last large-scale manufacturer of welding sheet glass in America/Europe. The last of the Schott glass is gone from our supplier, and they are currently trying to get glass from China. This has lead to a shortage of sheet glass in shade 4, 5 and 6, which has also hit us.

We are starting to work with the Chinese glass, but it has some drawbacks, mainly an apparent color difference. Schott welding glass is grey-green in appearance. Chinese welding is yellow-green in appearance. Therefore, we will no longer be able to replace single lens units in any of the AGW-250, 286 or 325 filters, they must be sold in pairs so they color match. This will *NOT* be covered under our warranty.

Clip on Frames now available!!

It took a long time, but we’ve finally found a reliable supplier of high quality clip on frames.

Clips are now available and on our website for the following filters:

AUR-92 $ 79.95 each
AUR-99 $ 64.95 each
AGW-203 $ 109.95 each
AGW-250 $ 129.95 each
AGW-300 $ 279.95 each

Anti-reflective coatings are available only for the AUR-92 and AUR-99 filters.

Clip on frames are available in a variety of shapes and sizes. We’ve made it easy to select by showing a picture of the clip on, sorted by shape and size. To select your clip on, first find the approximate shape of your frame, then measure the width of the lens opening and the height of the lens opening (horizontal and vertical) in millimeters.

Clip ons are available now, and will ship approximately 5 to 7 business days after your order.

Testing the polycarbonate filters

By popular demand, I’m testing the polycarbonate “glassworking” spectacles that are currently available.  Being tested first is the dark filter for borosilicate glass. As shown below, the filter is mounted on a standard head model made of styrofoam. Each of the lenses is taped 50 percent with black electricians tape.

Selections and more…

I’ve just finished a massive update to the AVC (www.auralens.net) website. I’ve added somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 (or more) frames (if you count colors and sizes).  We’ve got RED, Blue, Green, even PUCE (oh, god, why?). Plastic and metal. Some memory metals. Boring 1960′s retro designs as well as some cutting edge fashion frames. Did I mention RED? Men’s, women’s and unisex.

Oh, yeah, and I have RED frames!!!

Don’t forget, I’ve got a sale going on through the end of the month…http://www.auralens.net/discount_bts.cfm

Lies and damned lies…

It’s all about the mandrels, of course.

About two months ago, I received an order from a “gentleman” (in quotes on purpose) from Florida for a dozen of our “Almost Indestructable Mandrels”, size 12″ 3/32″ diameter. I promptly sent them out and thought nothing further of the matter.

About a week later, he e-mailed me with a rather nasty e-mail indicated that the mandrels were bent and useless. Within about an hour, I also heard from a long-time customer with the same problem. I went and checked and found that, yes, the mandrels were all bent from the batch that we had previously made about a week prior. I dumped them, made up a new batch, and those were bent as well. The entire box of metal rod was bent.

I admit, I dropped the ball, and neglected to inform my customer in Florida that we had a problem, but when he contacted me a week later, I apologized and let him know what was going on. I had new material on order and we were waiting for its arrival.

The reordered material came in and it too was bent. I called my vendor and they checked their entire stock and all they had was bent — remember that this rod is used for TIG welding, and if it is bent, it really doesn’t matter to the welder…but it does matter to “us” and you.

Long story short, we finally, after 4 weeks, received a good batch of metal, which was promptly cut up yesterday and kilned overnight and shipped out this morning…and this is where the title of this blog comes in.

Seems Mr. “Gentleman” took his complaint to Lampworkers Etc. Now, I’ll be the first to say that it is certainly his right to do so, however, I strongly disagree with anyone that he also has the right to post copies and/or exerpts of e-mails that I send out. In any case, Mr. “Gentleman” is nowhere near a “gentleman”. The language he has used in his e-mails to me is unprofessional to say the least. But I’m not too upset about that. It’s the lies that he has posted on LE to ‘make his case’ that bother me.

1. I haven’t blocked his e-mails. Why would I? In fact, this morning, I sent him at least two, so if I had him blocked, how could I have gotten an e-mail from him to respond to?

2. He is now setting up the possibility that I have somehow “cheated” him by substituting an inferior material in the mandrels I shipped out this morning. What an astonishing claim! He also claimed in an e-mail to me this morning that he will know if I shipped him inferior material because he knows what my material is. Good luck with that!

3. Mr. “Gentleman” could have gotten a full refund, however, he THREW AWAY THE BENT MANDRELS. He asked me what to do with them, and I told him that I would send him replacements, but keep the old ones until he receives the new ones…but he threw them away. How can I issue a refund on a supposedly defective product if they aren’t in my hands?

4. Mr. “Gentleman” is now apparently accusing people that he has had past (bad) dealings with of passing on information to me, supposedly about his wife’s name, that only 4 people in the glass working world know it. Hmmm…better double check that Mr. “Gentleman”. Your wifes name is on your website. It is also on the account she has in her own name at my place of business.

Come now, Mr. “Gentleman”. I have sent you TWO DOZEN mandrels to replace the one dozen that were defective.  I think it is time to end the drama and go back to making beads. OK?