doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Magnifying Lenses

I'm getting back into a stock making project and need some thoughts or recommendations on a pair of optical magnifiers. I see in the Brownell Catalog that there is a range of magnification from 1.5x up to 3.5x. For a guy like me (65 yo wearing bifocals and also with a pair of intermediate "computer" glasses for the desk), what's the best magnification to buy for checkering and other detail work? I want enough mag to see well, but not so much that I get motion sickness.

I am 67 and have to wear dime store reading glasses. I use to wear opti visor for stock work and finally got use to them but went back to $1.00 reading glasses.I buy 5 or 6 pair with different magnifaction and find the one that works best. Bobby

Dave I use a #5 on my optivisor, seems to work. I am 74 and normally use bifocals for reading. I use the optivisor over my normal glasses, I wonder where Bobby finds glasses for 1.00.

Jim

Jim, I find them off and on at Target in the dollar bins in the front of the store. (Occasionally at dollar stores and the like.) I do the same as Bobby. When they have them I buy a bunch in different magnifications and leave them all over the place. Works for me. RCC

Dave-

For engraving I use the clip-on lenses seen on this Otto-Frei page
Clip On Magnifier

They work beautifully, and it's hard to even tell there on.
Furthermore, you can view through them AND whatever other magnification device you use (some guys work with magnifying glass desk lamps for instance)


--Tinker

Thanks for the advice, guys. Craig/Bobby: Do you normally wear glasses and if so, how do you fit the magnifiers over them? I wear glasses all the time and if I wear just a pair of magnifiers off the shelf, I just see everything still blurry but bigger! Tinker, the link doesn't work for me. I found the Otto-Frei site, but there are many types of magnifiers. Which ones do you use?

Dave-

The ones that I got from them are clip-on for your existing glasses, with a single rectangular lens that can flip up and out of the way when not in need.

They look just like this





--Tinker

I use clip-ons that I've bought from various suppliers over the years. Like others, I've also used the generic readers and I'm up to about +2.75 for reading. I find that the older 1.75-2.00 glasses that I've outgrown for reading can be worn constantly for an hour or two around the shop. These are the ones I fit with clip-ons, giving me 8-10x magnification with the flip of a finger. When I bought my last ones from Life With Ease (http://www.lifewithease.com) , they only went up to 4X; I see they have 5X now....

Thanks guys. Now I can start searching for these. I'd rather use something like the flip-ups than the bulkier optivisor.

Thanks for the info re. 5X snap on lens --- I have ordered a set for my scratching --- will put them to good use. ken