Does anyone know if there is a tinting kit out there that I could use for darkening my sunglasses or eyeglasses? I want to try doing it myself instead of sending it out. Would that be a good thing to do or am I asking for trouble?
2007-12-09 13:48:17 · 3 answers · asked by loco 2 in Health ➔ Optical
What Seenotes says is correct. Also, you have to understand that proper temps for certian lenses and certain dyes are essential. You can do dammage to a lense and ruin it's coatings. Also, some lenses do not tint the same and most people do not understand that we spend a lot of time "matching" lenses to each other so that they are the same. Differences in Rx and also the age of the plastic can make big differences in how they tint. So, it is not just cut and dried like tinting easter eggs. Really. let someone do it that can do it right. Different plastics take different treatments and different coatings are hard to determine as well. It just does not work well.
2007-12-09 14:12:22 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I've never heard of a do-it-yourself home lens tinting kit and if there was such an animal, I'd be skeptical and I'd beware.
Where I work, it costs $15 to tint a pair of lenses. That's all. Do you know how much it will cost to replace your lenses if you ruin them trying to take the cheap way out and tint them yourself, assuming there was a home tinting kit available? A heck of a lot more than $15, I'm sure. I'm sure most places are pretty close to that pricing for a standard tint. Polarization will cost a lot more, but a standard sunglass tint will probably run you between $15 - $25. Still cheaper than having to replace your entire lenses.
And, depending on what coatings you have, and depending on what lens material you have, its possible that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to tint your lenses, no matter who does it. On certain lenses, the tinting must be done prior to the hard coating because after they hard-coat the lenses, they are no longer pourous and will not absorb the color.
So, in a nutshell...leave it to the professionals.
Here endeth the lesson.
2007-12-10 14:36:04 · answer #2 · answered by ♥♥Mrs SSG B♥♥ 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Asking for trouble, really.
But if it were a pair of glasses that you wouldn't wear otherwise, and the lenses can be removed from the frames easily, and there's no special coatings on them... then maybe. Get some fabric dye, warm it up, and make some kind of holder for the lenses out of coathanger wire so they spend exactly the same amount of time in the solution.
If you need to, you can probably remove the dye with bleach. I did that successfully when I got a pair of tinted glasses and decided I'd rather have them clear. I just immersed the lenses in bleach at room temperature, and left them in until they were clear. This was with standard plastic (CR39) lenses; I don't know how it affects other types of material, or coatings.
2007-12-13 10:22:47 · answer #3 · answered by Wombat 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That is tricky without a home tint kit (dont think it exists) If your lenses are relatively new, I'd say take them to any Optical to be re-tinted. However, if they are older and scratched, re-tinting can cause the scratches to "show up" more than before, especially if the scratches penentrated the original coatings in the lenses. Hope this helps!
2007-12-09 14:06:37 · answer #4 · answered by Seeno†es™ 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
How To Tint Glasses
2016-11-10 11:22:11 · answer #5 · answered by smithwick 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋