By Barry Santini

For hundreds of years, mastering the art of making spectacles required years of training and practice. During much of the middle of the last millennium, these carefully honed skills were codified by newly-formed eyeglass trade guilds, whose purpose was to protect the secrets of their process and their profits. Much of these guilds’ accumulated knowledge, together with advancements made possible by the application of computer numeric controlled technology to the tradition of lens grinding, can be found inside today’s digital finishing systems.

But despite all the ease, precision and unmatched accuracy delivered by digital tracers, blockers and edgers, some eyecare professionals still question the value and benefits of this technology. These ECPs consider the purchase of a state-of-the-art finishing system as a bottom line cost rather than an investment that will pay them back in important and under appreciated ways.

In fact, today’s finishing systems deliver dramatically decreased lab costs, reduced waiting times and a greatly expanded range of advanced services, including rimless shape customization and even emergency remounts of patients’ lenses while they wait. Most importantly, these systems finally put ECPs in control of lens fit and retention, a category cited by consumers as most influential in determining their opinion of eyeglass quality. Although heard countless times at the front lines of any dispensing desk, it bears repeating here: Eyeglass wearers don’t want their prescription lenses protruding or falling out of their frames.

In today’s increasingly commoditized eyewear marketplace, ECPs can no longer afford to dismiss how having a state-of-the-art, in-office finishing system clearly communicates their commitment to eyewear quality, expertise and convenience to customers. It is far better at pointing out how added value, rather than overhead, underlies much of their higher asking prices.

FROM DIGITS TO DIGITAL
For 600 years after their birth, spectacle making remained a process principally performed by hand. Even as the advent of powered machines in the late 1800s invaded the realm of spectacle workshops, increasing the production efficiencies of manufacturing eyeglasses, the final fitting of lens to frame continued to demand the skills and experience of a master optician. This remained the status quo until the late 1980s, when a European company named Briot unveiled its first patternless edger, the Scanform 5000S, launching the age of digitally-based spectacle manufacturing. Using optical encoders borrowed from the precision machining industry, lens shape accuracy and sizing were improved by several orders of magnitude. And although the engineers of digital tracers and lens edgers had to iron out more than a few processing kinks in the following years of software development, it was clear that one age had passed, and another one had begun.

The manufacturing challenges facing eyecare professionals today are similar to, yet different from those of the original guild of spectacle makers. To better understand all the value, benefits and possibilities resident in a digital edging system, let’s compare our challenges to those of guild craftsmen past.

THE CHALLENGE OF MATERIALS

Mating lenses to frame is a skilled endeavor. It’s understandable why members of the guild jealously guarded the secrets and skills acquired through a long and time tested path. Starting as an apprentice—as my father did—you began by sweeping floors. As a journeyman, your first concerns were often not with making glasses, but with making your own tools. Finally, you became a master when you were able to handle the most difficult challenges of spectacle making.

Over generations, guild workers became well-versed in the care and handling of a wide variety of natural frame materials, such as wood, bone, jade, sharkskin, baleen, leather and ivory. Today, even though eyecare professionals rarely encounter frames made from real tortoiseshell, there is a noticeable rise in the use of frames made from horn and wood. These natural materials are much more fragile than injected molded plastics and require that lenses be critically sized in order to avoid frame damage or breakage. The tolerances inherent in a digital finishing system are well-matched for processing materials like these, which are sensitive to size differences as little as 0.1 mm.

Although guild workers sometimes fabricated lenses from super hard quartz, most eyeglasses featured lenses made from a delicate and unforgiving material; one where chipping, flaking and—the term is correctly used here—even breakage was commonplace: untempered glass. For lenses, the challenges posed today may be even greater. The increased popularity of PPG’s Trivex and its newer cousin Tribrid make it essential that your edgers have at a minimum, the latest software upgrades and advanced grinding wheels present in order to process these materials without excessive spoilage or long cycle times. That old, trusty edger, the one you have fully paid for, may no longer be capable of the fastest and most competitive delivery times, especially if its limited capabilities require farming out certain lens materials or frames to an outside lab. Note that today’s edgers and tracers are essentially dedicated mini computers, so it should be easy to understand that an older edger may no longer be capable of processing the latest jobs any more than a seven-year-old computer can run the latest and most sophisticated apps smoothly, if at all.

The Guilded Age

In the sixth century BC in Rome, one lucky citizen woke without a clue that a significant historical event lay ahead for them: The discovery that objects appeared larger when viewed through a glass goblet filled with water. It is speculated that from this humble encounter, mankind’s interest in optics was born. But almost a millennium would pass before others found that molten convex droppings of glass, serendipitously left to cool on a hard floor, provided a magnified view of objects placed underneath them. Late in 13th century Italy, these crude “reading stones,” paired together for the first time in a frame with an attached handle, were placed in front of an elder’s eye, and voila! Near objects were now seen more clearly. These “verti da occhi,” or “discs for the eyes” are generally heralded as the birth of eyeglasses.

Soon glass craftsmen in Italy recognized the importance and magic of their newly discovered vision aids. Seeking to protect the secrets of their making, they advocated moving all the glass-making furnaces to the island of Murano, under the pretense that a chance fire would pose a real threat to the fair city of Venice. There, far from prying eyes, they established the Guild of Crystal Workers to promulgate rules, regulations and even penalties if members ever divulged the secrets of lens making.

As eyeglasses became associated with wisdom, learning and nobility, they also became more sophisticated. In Germany around 1535, the Nuremberg Spectacle Makers Guild was formed to regulate what was increasingly recognized as a new and important industry. Over 90 years later in 1629, the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers was formed in London to do the same. Around 1799 in America, a Scotsman named John McAllister founded the country’s first optical shop in Philadelphia. During his first years in business, he imported finished eyewear from his homeland in Great Britain. But because of an embargo present during the War of 1812, McAllister began manufacturing gold and silver frames in his Pennsylvania workshop. For this reason, John McAllister is considered a founder of opticianry in the United States.

KNOW IT ALL
When I first graduated my two years of optical school, of course I thought I knew everything. But my father, a trained optician of the old school, knew better. He told me it would take at least 10 years to master all the knowledge and techniques needed to fabricate any type of eyeglasses, including rimless styles made with glass lenses. Of course, my response at the time was, “That’s nonsense.” Although my dad was experienced in all areas of opticianry, when he and I had disagreements, it was over the explanations that underlie the rules of thumb he had learned on the job. Being non-school educated, he had little classroom training in optical theory or the mechanics of the boxing system. Coincidentally, it took me about those same 10 years to uncover the theoretical explanations behind all those rules of thumb. I guess he was right after all.

MAN ON THE MOON
My dad passed in the early 1980s, before the advent of patternless edging, automatic lens meters and digital tracers/blockers. Yet often, as I’m finishing a custom rimless job, a pair of wraparound sunglasses or even a simple single vision pair using stock lenses, I hear his voice pop into my head, reciting the appropriate rule of thumb he would have used to address the challenge at hand. It is amazing to realize how much of our skilled craft now relies on the precision of optical encoders, guided by the accumulated wisdom of 700 years of spectacle making, and burned onto a chip the size of a postage stamp. Those who know me well know how much I love to recite the following: “If my Dad could see what digital edgers could do today, he would be as amazed as he was on the day man landed on the moon.”

—BS

THE CHALLENGE OF CURVES AND EDGES
The main task facing the old guild craftsman was to fit together lenses and frames that were flat in form. At the beginning of the 20th century, the arrival of steeper profile, optically superior “best form” lenses from Zeiss, American Optical, Bausch & Lomb and Shuron demanded that opticians develop and refine very fine hand beveling skills necessary for mounting these curved lenses. In time, eyewire profiles were standardized on the 6-base profile to better match most prescription lenses. But in the early 1980s, the advent of super larger frame fashion combined with the availability of lighter weight, non-glass alternative lens materials pushed base curves flatter in order to reduce lens bulge and thickness and improve retention. Yet many frames lagged behind this flatter trend, continuing instead to feature 6-base eyewire curves. As a result, opticians saw the challenge of fitting steeper lenses to flatter frames turned on its head to fitting flatter lenses to steeper frames. It was at this point that digital frame tracers were developed to help opticians meet the challenges of fitting any type of lens to any type of frame.

As little as 10 years ago, almost any pair of frames could be glazed using three common beveling profiles: standard hide-a-bevel, flat rimless or nylor grooved. But consumers today desire to put prescriptions in steeply-curved, 8-base curve wraparound sunglass styles. Edging manufacturers have responded to this challenge with new cutting profiles, including hi-curve—an evolution of the original V bevel—and step-bevel, which creates an edge profile that makes thicker Rx lenses appear to fit like a plano lens. Eyecare professionals can also access a number of new edging modes colloquially termed variable bevel. These modes, derived from those used for wrap profile frames, are excellent for optimizing lens retention, reducing lens exposure and maintaining that all-important authentic, off-the-shelf frame fit in conventional, non-wrap frame styles.

THE CHALLENGE OF CONVENIENCE
The increasing demand for convenience is perhaps the single challenge facing today’s eyecare professional that didn’t task the old guild craftsmen. With overnight delivery of complete prescription eyewear certain to become reality in the near future, brick-and-mortar opticals must recognize how important prioritizing customer convenience will be if they are to remain competitive in the future. With the latest digital tracers, ECPs can finally overcome their lack of confidence in remote preparation of edged lenses for a customer’s own frame, or COF. This is critical, since the public is often really thinking about how long they’ll have to give up their glasses when they ask “How long do lenses take to make?”
Besides the ability to download and store shape, size and OEM drill point data for almost any standard rimless frame, the digital memory of today’s tracers allows the following benefits:
• The ability to create and store custom rimless shapes, both drilled and grooved.
• The ability to store modified drill points for any type of rimless chassis.
• The ability to transfer a lens shape from one rimless chassis type to another, i.e., Silhouette to Lindberg, for example.
• The ability to process, store and prepare magnetic layers in-house.

These levels of processing convenience may appear unneeded to some ECPs today, but in the near future, they will come to define the minimum baseline of service that their clients will soon expect. I often wonder what the craftsmen of yore would think if they could see the entirety of what digital finishing equipment can do today (see sidebar).

THE ART AND CRAFT OF SPECTACLE MAKING
The art of crafting quality eyewear requires three things: a theoretical understanding of the process, the acquisition of a variety of hand skills and most importantly, the personal discipline to refrain from cutting corners, even when time pressures mount or the end wearer would never know. For those who have taken the apprentice’s journey, the ultra-precise capabilities of a digital tracer and edger, used with intelligence and care, elevates the art of marrying lens to frame to new heights of quality. For others with less experience, a digital finishing system makes manufacturing eyewear an easy to learn and master experience, reducing the fear of ruining today’s expensive free-form lenses in-house. It will instill in your office staff that rare, personal pride that only comes from making something yourself. It is a pride worn proudly on the sleeve of every employee, and it is visibly evident in every customer interaction and at every customer touch point.

A PROUD TRADITION
There is much to be proud of today as a spectacle maker. A millennial review of the 100 most important inventions of mankind featured eyeglasses, noting that they extended the useful working lifetime of all types of people, from artisans to philosophers. In view of this, can we really continue, in good conscience, to quietly stand by and allow the persuasive voice of consumer media to define the narrative of just what constitutes an eyecare professional’s value? For pandering to the public the idea that eyeglasses are but a few pieces of plastic, costing pennies to manufacture, devoid of intrinsic value, and unconscionably marked up by the greed of middlemen, the media should be clearly re-educated about who we are, what we do and our long and noble tradition of spectacle making.

Today, as eyeglasses finally come to be desired as a true fashion accessory, we should thank companies like Warby Parker who, despite being vilified by some in our industry, have actually performed a vital service: They’ve rescued the idea of wearing eyeglasses from the dustbin of undesirability, returning it to its origins as a marker of prestige, knowledge and power. Let’s not wait 700 more years before eyecare professionals become earnest and outspoken advocates for the proud tradition, history and importance of eyewear. With a state-of-the-art, digital finishing system in your office, you’ll become a member in good standing of the new Guilded Age of spectacle making. ■


L&T contributing editor Barry Santini is a New York State-licensed optician based in Seaford, N.Y.

For more on digital lens finishing, read Barry Santini’s article “Dynamically Digital Finishing” in 20/20’s supplement “Dynamically Digital Eyewear” online at 2020mag.com/supplements.