Very overdue repair of sunglasses

When I lived in Norway, I bought a new pair of sunglasses. Or rather; a pair of multifunctional glasses. It was a plastic frame with three sets of lenses; one clear pair, one orange pair and one brown pair. You could just put in what you wanted. And these glasses didn't last in their original shape for very long; they were not very strong, and I broke both legs. A bit of splinting is tempting then; it is a fairly straightforward repair. But I did a bit of a hash job on it. On one side I repaired it with a nail and on the other side with a twig. That wasn't a particularly good job, obviously. I later tried to improve on it, but I still didn't quite nail it. And at some point I decided to just buy a new pair. And I did.

I rode around with these for a while; I don't normally use them as sunglasses, as I have a pair of prescription sunglasses (also bought in Norway) who do a fine shading job and also allow me to see better. But I really need an additional pair just to keep the insects out of my eyes during my commute; especially the downhill bit. If you forget your glasses you arrive in Bangor with Insectageddon in your eyes. It's very unpleasant! And I use them with the clear lenses. The bicycle helmet has a bit of a peak, and that keeps the sun out of your eyes. The new glasses were the lightest glasses the shop I tried them in were selling, but they were still considerably darker than the clear ones. And that's not really a good thing. So I took the opportunity of wearing the new pair to undo my old repairs, and spend a bit of time on finding a more permanent solution.

I decided to saw some pieces of thin rod to size, file off the edges, bend them in the shape of the legs of the glasses, and attach them. I decided to go follow a two-pronged approach; I first superglued the broken of bits of leg back, then superglued the rod to the top, drilled some holes in the legs, and then wound some brass wire around the whole thing in order to fix the rods into position stronger than only with glue. I made sure to avoid sticky-outy pointy bits! And I think I was successful. I think I have given these glasses a new lease of life. I can have the new glasses as backup. They are also okay for running. But now I can bike to Bangor with clear lenses protecting my eyes from the copious insects that populate my route! Success.

About to start the repair

Finished!