The materials that eyeglass frames are made of, including some that are very unusual!

This is a pretty good summary of traditional glasses frame materials, to which I will add the following unconventional materials used in 3D-printed frames, that I have personally tried to wear quite extensively:

  • PLA: lightweight, cheap, forgiving, ubiquitous, reasonably solid and durable, VERY easy to form - and deform - under moderate heat. Don’t leave PLA frames on the dash of your car in the summer or you’ll come back to a gooey mess. You can easily chemically-polish PLA smooth with acetone to make PLA frames very comfortable to wear on your skin for extended periods of time. PLA is a bioplastic made from plant material and is biodegradable, so it’s a good choice if you’re environmentally-minded. PLA has very low toxicity and is regarded as food-safe.

  • PETG: a variant of PET - think frames made of the same plastic soda bottles are made of. Slightly stronger than PLA and a bit more tolerant of heat, but harder to polish smooth. Like soda bottles, it’s not terribly environmentally friendly, but glasses frames use very little of it. PETG is also very low toxicity.Very comfortable to wear for a long time if you take the time to polish it.

  • PVB: visually stunning. Can be polished to a shiny sheen in seconds - and destroyed just as quickly if you overdo it - with IPA. Clear natural PVB can be made almost transparent! Not that great mechanically, so only use it if you never abuse your glasses and you’re after the aesthetics. Quite comfortable.

  • Wood-plastic composite: I’ve only tried wood-infused PLA. It’s substantially weaker than straight PLA and it’s not terribly comfortable to wear for more than 12 hours, but it looks stunninly like real wood with a modicum of sanding with 400-grid sandpaper. If you like wooden items, this one is for you.

  • @over_clox
    2•4 days ago

    Well, if it counts for anything, both sets of frames were exactly the same model, from Walmart. Luckily I got the second set under warranty just 2 weeks before the warranty expired. Not so luckily the second set broke exactly the same way, almost a year later.

    The nose bridge was on the rather thin side if you ask me. Honestly I don’t see why they even chose to use that metal in the nose bridge, that’s a high stress point. As long as the earpieces are made of the stuff, it’s all good to me, if they could just be made to last.

    From my understanding, even as flexible as that NiTiNOL stuff is, over time it gradually weakens the molecular structure after so many times flexing.

    • @[email protected]OPM
      2•4 days ago

      Honestly I don’t see why they even chose to use that metal in the nose bridge, that’s a high stress point.

      Not only that, but you actually don’t want the nose bridge to flex. Your lenses are cut to work at a certain angle from one another and at a certain angle from vertical, set by the frame’s geometry. If your frame flexes - typically for example if your temples are too narrow and the hinges aren’t spring-loaded - then the lenses will “point” inward and your correction will be incorrect, potentially giving you blurry vision or headaches.

      I think the whole flex thing is kind of a marketing gimmick: you’re sold on the idea that you can sit on your glasses without consequences - a promise I’ve never seen materialize - and the compromises needed to achieve that make frames that easily become optically unsuitable.

      Walmart

      That might be the quality problem. Wallyworld isn’t exactly high-end stuff.

      • @over_clox
        2•4 days ago

        The first pair, I’d actually sorta ‘play’ with them at times, flexing the nose bridge upwards of around 90⁰ sometimes. The whole time I thought it was neat as hell, but also simultaneously thinking “How long will this stuff really last”

        If anything, I wanted them to break while still under warranty, and luckily I got exactly what I wanted, almost exactly 2 weeks before the warranty expired.

        After getting the warranty replacement frames, I made a point to not deliberately flex the nose bridge, no more than it would naturally flex while wearing them. And honestly, the nose bridge didn’t flex very much naturally, the earpieces plus the hinge springs did like 95% of the flexing. They were very comfortable actually.

        But alas, even while treating the replacement frames with much more care, they still managed to break in the same exact spot. ☹️

        I’m back home now, the frames are labeled as M•Flex, I assume that’s the brand name. ME507 GUN 53[]19 145 (the brackets represent the square, I assume those numbers represent the exact model and dimensions).

        • @[email protected]OPM
          2•4 days ago

          53-19-145 are the standardized frame measurements. They mean:

          • Eye size: 53mm (that’s the width of the lenses)
          • Bridge size: 19mm (that’s the width of the space for your nose to fit in)
          • Temple length: 145mm (that’s the length of the temples from the hinge to the tip - only valid for library or skull temples, but not for cable temples)

          I assume ME507 is the Flexon model number and GUN is the color of the anodization (i.e. “gunmetal”)