FINISHING EQUIPMENT
GETTING THE EDGE,
Making a Difference
Contemporary lens finishing systems can boost business through efficiency and custom service
BY SUSAN TARRANT
It’s a basic rule of business that in order to succeed, you must offer your client something they can’t get somewhere else. For optical retail, where competitors may sell similar frames and lenses, the difference often lies in service—being able to satisfy all of the patient’s eyewear needs professionally, quickly, and with an eye for personalization that the other shops just can’t match.
TRENDING EFFICIENCY
Today’s contemporary lens finishing equipment makes edging lenses—all kinds of lenses—in a word, easy. As the lens materials and coatings have evolved, edging machinery has kept pace, with the newest generations offering operators the ability to customize eyewear, keep the process in-house, and provide complete (and quick) service to patients.
For many, it’s what gives them the edge over the competition.
“[Edging in-house] has meant a great difference between us and the next place,” says Tim McNemar, LDO, owner of Arlington Optical in Upper Arlington and Columbus, OH. His two locations are able to process 80% of lens jobs in-house. “The new edgers are the like the newest smartphones, they are very advanced and capable of making complex jobs easy.”
So what is so new with these edgers? Among the hottest new features are the following.
BEVELS. The ability to choose bevel types, and have them placed perfectly, is a huge benefit for ECPs. Being able to “play” with bevel shape and placement allows them to expand the range of jobs that can be handled in-house, such as popular high-wrap styles.
CUSTOMIZATION. Personalization and customization and are buzzwords in the industry today, with good reason. Customers who want something unique can have it, as some advanced edgers can process any shape the operator dreams up. Angled drilling, custom placement of drill holes, lens engraving, and countersunk holes for jewels provide elements of pizzazz.
AUTO BLOCKING. Proper blocking is integral to accuracy. Automated functions remove all need for calculations, and optical blocking uses a camera-based process to bring blocking to the next level.
MILLING. This alternate way to rough a lens to its shape with very little rotational torque helps eliminate slippage and the possibility of breakage. This is key in this age of new lens materials and premium coatings.
MARKETING TIP #1
Tim McNemar, LDO, has high-quality videos of his lab in action on the website of his Arlington Optical in Ohio. But even more important to his business are the videos showcasing the customized lenses the business has designed.
“We want to give [prospective patients] information on what we are most proud of—our craftsmanship,” he explains. “The whole focus on the website isn’t on our brands, per se. It’s on us and what we can do.”
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Yes, bringing edging in-house will result in savings due to lowered lab bills. But the real boon is the ability to do something for your patients that your competition cannot.
McNemar explains: “When you can confidently say to a patient, ‘Mrs. Jones, we’re going to drop the drill holes just a bit to bring the contour of the lens more in line with your browline, or to make the bridge fit better,’ that patient is impressed.”
“We definitely save money, but our patients are excited anytime we can turn the glasses around quickly with quality,” says Kevin D. Schmidt, O.D., of Eyecare Plus, a six-location practice in Tennessee. “This edger makes all of these things possible with a lot less effort.”
Honing the craftsmanship that modern edgers allow opens you up to services like personalizing lenses with custom shapes and cut-outs, etching, and countersunk gemstones. When you can offer a patient anything they can imagine, and deliver perfection, that patient is yours.
IT’S A WRAP!
High-wrap frames are very popular, and edging and tracing technology has advanced to allow ECPs to keep most of these jobs in-house as well. Digital tracing and the ability to choose the bevel type—step bevel, shelf bevel, you name it—makes every lens a perfect fit.
Valerie Brock, ABOC, of Kittery Eye Associates in Kittery, ME, believes that the ability to adapt the type and placement of bevels has opened up a whole segment of jobs to their in-house lab.
“We can make so many more wrap styles now, which is huge,” she says. “We can do all sorts of sunwear now, without having to send it out. Because it’s all computerized, we can move a bevel a millimeter this way or that way to make lens fit perfectly. We don’t have to rely on our lab or as many things.”
MARKETING TIP #2
Kevin Schmidt, O.D., of Eyecare Plus in Tennessee has videos on his website about the digital lenses they offer (they have a surfacing lab, too) and features his in-house lab equipment in all of his direct marketing.
“We provide information on what we are able to provide compared to other offices in our area,” he says.
EASY PEASY
Small footprints allow the machines to be located almost anywhere, and the speed and ease of use have made them efficient and easy.
“Everything is touch screen and easy. It’s so much easier than things used to be,” Brock says. “It’s allowed us to do more with our jobs.”
“We were able to eliminate a second edger at one location. The speed of cut regardless of the material makes it possible for us to edge 40 plus jobs daily,” says Dr. Schmidt, whose practice also has a central surfacing lab. “It has eliminated the use of outside labs for wraps with mirror coatings that required those cuts, and it eliminated slippage on the super hydrologic coatings that we use on our AR coater.”
“The blocking to the finished product is a no-brainer,” says McNemar. “I don’t mean you don’t use your brain, I mean that every step in the process now, including placing the pads and everything, is pristine and perfect. You know it’s going to be right.”
AIT
The WECO E.6 Patternless Edger with Smart Design Milling offers integrated drilling, milling, grooving, safety bevel, high-wrap edging, and a simple to use interface to process Chemistrie magnetic lenses. When coupled with the new C.5 camera-assisted automatic blocker, it features built-in lensometry, non-contact camera tracing, and new Smart Design technology to produce complex shapes using Bezier curves. When used in conjunction with its shelf bevel functionality, these features give the E.6 the ability to tackle complex high-base curve frames with ease.
INFO: AITINDUSTRIES.COM
ON TREND: HIGH WRAPS, OPTICAL TRACING/BLOCKING, CHEMISTRIE SUN LENSES
BRIOT
The Alta Zd easily adapts to individual requirements, including a partial processing function, step bevel, and the ability to combine a groove together with a V-Bevel. The combination of a milling tool and small finishing wheels enables a lab tech to create intricate, customized shapes with ease. If you can take a picture of a shape, the Alta Zd can recreate. The capability to assign individual angles to drill holes makes the mounting of any rimless frame simple without creating tension.
Powered by Smart Design Technology, the Alta Zd captures lens shapes with the pattern recognition system on Briot’s Alta XLd. The frame, digitized in Bezier Shape Data, can be transferred directly to the Alta Zd, which automatically determines which tools to use to customize the desired pattern.
INFO: BRIOT.COM/USA
ON TREND: HIGH SPEED, BEVEL CHOICES, CUSTOMIZED SHAPES, AUTO FUNCTIONS
COBURN TECHNOLOGIES
Coburn’s Exxpert finishing system allows ECPs to mix and match different levels of edgers with different levels of tracing and blocking equipment to give them the features and benefits that fit their needs. Specialty beveling features, custom safety beveling, and drilling are the features of Exxpert HPE-8000 edger. Two types of milling technology easily handles specialty jobs. Having the drill separated from the edger allows a lens to be in the edger while another lens is being drilled.
The Exxpert HAB-8000 is an all-in-one tracing/lensometer/blocking system that simplifies jobs through frame and lens tracing; digital lens scanning to create exact shapes, custom shapes, holes and notches; shape modification; lensometer; automatic lens recognition blocker; and complete job storage using any format.
INFO: COBURNTECHNOLOGIES.COM
ON TREND: SPECIALTY BEVELING, DIGITAL SCANNING, SHAPE CUSTOMIZATION
ESSILOR INSTRUMENTS
Mr. Blue 2.0 is Essilor Instruments’ most sophisticated, yet easy to use, edging system. Its versatility and functionality allow operators to finish all jobs efficiently—from simple standard work to lenses with super hydrophobic AR and complex specialty shapes. This second-generation system offers a hybrid platform for dry or wet edging, can handle high-base curves, auto centering and blocking, and a unique milling function for total axis control. Fully integrated into Mr. Blue 2.0’s lens edger is M’Eye Sign, a process that allows custom engraving on lenses. It employs a database of letters and symbols that allows ECPs to offer any kind of lens engraving—from the patient’s initials to a sports emblem.
INFO: ESSILORINSTRUMENTSUSA.COM
ON TREND: LENS ENGRAVING, CUSTOMIZATION, EASE OF USE
NATIONAL OPTRONICS
The 7Ex is a multifunctional 3D edging system with advanced drilling, grooving, and polishing capabilities. It handles high-base lenses and complex shapes with its unique cutter design and cutting system that includes roughing, beveling, polishing, grooving, drilling, and safety bevels along with multiple bevel designs. B measurements can go as low as 18mm (with an optional package to go down to 16mm) while maintaining the ability to edge a full range of lenses. Dry-cut technology eliminates water consumption and coolants without sacrificing product quality.
INFO: NATIONALOPTRONICS.COM
ON TREND: SMALL FOOTPRINT, BEVEL CHOICES, EASY DRILLING
OPTEK
The standout feature of the Shape finishing center is that its user interface makes it very simple to create artistic, high-end designs. No CAD-type programming is needed. Instead, you can drag and drop edge shapes onto a lens or create a completely new and unique edge design by drawing on the screen. Premium adornments such as engravings and jewel sets can be applied using the same simple design tools. Its freeEDGE software technology allows you to easily create high-end design features such as free-form edges and engraving, and to digitize traces for importing existing artwork. Designs can be mirrored, scaled, rotated, and repeated to best fit the lens shape, and an onboard database saves designs for reuse.
INFO: OPTEKINTERNATIONAL.COM
ON TREND: CUSTOM SHAPES, LENS ENGRAVING
SANTINELLI INTERNATIONAL
The ME 1200 is the company’s newest flagship lens edger, rich with features but compact in design. Among those features are step-beveling technology, allowing ECPs the ability to put Rx lenses in any high-wrap frame. Other features include high-curve beveling, partial beveling, partial grooving, design cut, faceting, advanced shape editing, and 3D grooving. An advanced polishing function eliminates knurl-mark edges and the unit’s diamond grooving wheel allows for a cleaner groove. The Radius Measurement Unit (RMU) measures the radius of the lens for proper cut-out and orients the lens for faster processing. A self-adjusting “wizard” technology provides quick self-calibration and auto adjustment.
INFO: SANTINELLI.COM
ON TREND: HIGH CURVES, CUSTOM SHAPES, BEVEL CHOICES, FAST PROCESSING
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