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.

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.

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.

The head is mounted on a rod of glass and stands the same distance and height from the torch head as the artist is. Unfortunately it is not possible to position the head so that it receives the same radiation (can’t superimpose the head over the artist), so the spectacles will receive slightly more radiation from the side of the flame.

The torch that will be used is the Bethlehem Tiger Shark and a local artist will be working at the torch for approximately 7 to 8 hours per day over the next week. Next week Friday (October 15th), I will strip the tape off one lens and examine it for changes. The following week, the other lens will be stripped and examined.

The following week, the soft glass polycarbonate filter will be tested the same way.

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

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?

And now, we are pleased to announce that we are now providing regular prescription eyewear, made of glass. Many people have told us that it is getting increasingly difficult to find a source for glass prescription lenses, so, with our new equipment, we made the decision to open up our product line and offer full prescription services.

The reasons for this vary, but boil down to a couple of main issues:

1) Durability. Plastic/polycarbonate lenses WILL scratch, regardless of any supposed anti-scratch coatings. Let’s face it, the glass studio is about the worst place to wear plastic/polycarbonate lenses if you want to avoid scratches. Glass chips and dust are everywhere even if you are the cleanest glassworker in the world. All it takes is one small scratch (and it always seems to be dead square in the center of the lens!) .

2) Filtration issues. Despite the high-tech ability of plastic manufacturers, no one has been able to invent a dye that exactly replicates the multi-notch filter that didymium and ACE/AUR-92 provide. Let’s be clear (sorry, pun not intended): the notch filter at 575-590 nanometers is an absolute requirement to filter out sodium flare. This notch needs to be sharp and well-defined. If the notch at that point is too wide, you remove the surrounding wavelengths of light, which, of course, removes your ability to see those colors, which affects your color perception.

3) Fading issues. ALL plastic/polycarbonate dyed lenses fade. The manufacturer may claim that they won’t — but under what conditions are they making those claims? In a medical office or surgical suite? In an industrial setting? Have they tested the dye in front of a 2800 degree F torch for 8 hours per day, 6 days a week for a month? Most likely not. All of the dyed lenses that I have ever seen fade over time and exposure to torch light/heat, something that these lenses were NEVER designed for.

Plastic or polycarbonate lenses are inexpensive, and you get exactly what you pay for. You will have to replace them frequently as they get scratched and faded. Perhaps as often as every 4 months, depending on how much time you spend behind the torch. A good pair of glass lenses will last literally for years. An average pair of plastic so-called “borosilicate glassworker” filters cost $60.00. An average pair of glass full-coverage borosilicate glassworker filters cost $ 135.00. If you (conservatively) replace your plastic filters every 9 months due to scratching/fading, you will have paid for a pair of glass filters in 18 months, and the glass lenses highly resist scratching and absolutely will not fade.

The average pair of glass borosilicate glassworker filters will last (if you take good care of them) many years. Plastic/polycarbonate filters will last maybe as long as 9 months.

And, as an added bonus, you don’t require a separate add-on lens holder if you require a prescription. Glass lenses quite easily can have your prescription ground into the filter. Plastic/polycarbonate filters cannot.

The choice is always yours, and the best choice is the one that is made with all the information available.

Discount is good through the end of the day on July 5th. You can order as often as you want from now until then. Pass this along to your friends as well!

We’ve had some questions from customers about our recent change of the wrap-around style frames which I’d like to address.

As some of you are aware, we’ve been dealing with long lead times on getting wrap frames from our supplier. Some of it was due to the severe weather that occurred during late winter on the east coast, but it wasn’t until recently that I discovered that our supplier had started up an in-house sports Rx lab and was siphoning off frames that should have gone first to suppliers.

We’ve also been having some issues with lenses popping out, notably on the Biker and Off-Road frames, as well as glue issues on the nose pads on the MX-30 and Torque frames. The manufacturer has refused to issue credit or replace the frame on any glue issue, claiming the frames were abused, which caused the glue to fail. The lens popping is caused by us having to back bevel the lenses so they fit in the extra thick eyewires.

Early this month, I decided enough was enough and changed to a different frame supplied by a different supplier. The new frame looks similar to the original Biker frame, but the temple design is different. This is because this new frame is a Z87 safety frame, a much higher standard than the original Biker frame. We believe the new frame is better than the Biker for several reasons: the new frame stands up to abuse far better than the Biker even though the temples have a thinner cross-section, the frame material is actually stronger and the thinner cross-section allows for some flex and give when worn. In testing the new frame, we were not able to cause a lens to pop. This was due, again, to the thinner cross-section of the eye wire. The lens fits much easier into the groove, which also eliminates the need to back bevel the lenses in order to fit them properly into the frame.

Change is always difficult, but I hope that you will come to like this new frame as much as we do. The feedback we have gotten so far is very positive, so we believe this is a good move for us.

On another note, we are currently in a back-order situation on the IR filter material we use on the AGW-300 and AGW-325. Currently we are looking at lead times of approximately 3 to 4 weeks before we get any material. We are working with our supplier to find alternate equivalent material and hope to have this solved very soon.