If the headline is a question the answer is always no!
I received my titanium glasses copy back from the opticians and boom! Broke them on the same day.
Snapped the pad arms right off the rims. I was defeated. I’d tried and I'd failed one too many times,
and so I just bought a pair of the same glasses again.
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| Enjoy that for the next five minutes bro |
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| Fig 1. |
For some reason these replacement frames took 6 months + to arrive and by the time they did I was ready to get back in the ring. In the intervening six months I realised that I could make any shape frame I wanted / forgot the reason I’d made a replica of my last pair of glasses in the first place. In all honesty I rushed the design. I didn’t want to over analyse the shape. I didn’t even overlay the design onto my face. This was a mistake as all three shapes I had cut ended up being the size of childrens glasses. A small detail which worked is the bridge to the nose pad arms. This does the double duty of holding the nose pads and also curving the frame. I did this by offsetting the holes in the nose pad holder inwards so that the frame must bend slightly to line up the holes. When assembling the glasses the screws tightening gradually bends the frames until the holes are aligned. If I were to spend even more time and money (I'm not bitter!) on this project I would definitely like to experiment with the curve that can be achieved by spreading out the holes over a greater area. The bend is quite tight in my frames and has more of a triangular shape when viewed from above.
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| forced perspective doing a lot of work here |
A large part of the reason I rushed the design is because I wanted to get this shit done! This project had been squatting in my head for a year/s? And I was calling the bailiffs. Knock knock! I shoudlnt have bothered because I spent the next few months harassing the shit out of the most useless laser cutting company maybe ever? I am not a titan of industry. I am not even a particularly competent maker. Most of these posts are brief forays into the darkness of my own incompetence. Jabs of my spear in the direction of understanding. However, I am trying my hardest to make stuff, and it is incredibly disheartening when companies dick you about. The company in question is a small-time outfit, they should get where I’m coming from. We’re all underdogs nipping at the nuts of the king dick. I get that this is my struggle and maybe you, my one singular reader don’t care, but here’s the timeline.
This company* offers a 5 day turnaround, cool branding, nice little outfit, fairly local, small time, fits the bill. I email them asking for a quote on x number of frames cut from 302 (remember that) stainless steel. I am quite specific about the material here because I emailed Mykita about what steel they use in their frames and was amazed to receive an email back that day. That’s service. laser cutting company replies, yeah all good, reasonable price, let's do it. Two weeks later, nothing, nada, zilch. Email, get reply, really sorry, get it out to you now, no worries. Received the frames, looking good, packaging could do with some work, very excited, ready to recommend this place to everyone (literally one) person that I know. Wait what is this, this steel is made out of hamburger cheese, I could bend this with my mind. I actually ordered some metal testing fluid from china to have proof in case this ever went to the supreme court. I email, no response. I go to London, I go to their address, I find this guy's phone number, and text him, he says, "I have to take my phone number off the internet", thinking out loud their bud. Turns out this shit they used wasn’t 302, this shit they used wasn’t even steel, it was literally compressed shit. I say, "it was in the email", he says, "oh really", he says, "we’ll do it again for free", i’m like, "oh thank you thank you thank you, for free, oh thank you oh generous one". I have to order the steel from china, pay for it mind, a bit seething about that still. Almost there… Of course they don’t tell me that they’ve received it, or that they’ve missed the delivery three times. I actually had to dress in all navy (better than black for blending in at night) and steal it out of the 747 that was ready to take it back to china. Condolences to the families of those that got in my way. 3 months after my initial quote I received my frames. I guess I'm writing all of this to convey how exhausting it is making shit when you outsource parts to people that hate you for no reason
