There are lots of steps in the process to make our handmade denim sunglasses, so many that Jack hasn’t even counted. We don’t have the time to count because the 3 of us that work alongside jack in his Cornish workshop are super busy making and fulfilling your orders! Jack took a rough guess and thinks there are about 50 steps in the whole process.
Many people might not know how to insert lenses into a frame, I certainly didn’t! Much to my amazement there are a few things that need to line up to make a lens fit the frame perfectly, and we don’t do all of that in-house at our little workshop in Cornwall!
We have to take it right back to the early design stage, having done some (lots) of research into styles of frames and various ways to fit lenses. We decided we wanted a groove that would fit beveled edge lenses. This shape allows for a smooth fit into the frames and creates a seamless connection between two separate objects (The frame and the lens).
The question I hear you asking is ‘How do you make the groove in your hardened denim frame?’ and that is a good question. When we say groove, we aren’t talking about making our handmade frames dance to 90’s hip hop when you wear them...although that would be pretty cool! We are talking about the narrow cut in our hardened denim to fit the lens.
These grooves are made using a special tool typically used for woodwork. However the unique notch on the side is perfect for carving out the grooves. It is a bit of a funny shape but it does exactly what we need it to do! A computer-controlled machine controls this tool, which means this stage of the process doesn't take very long at all.
The polarized lenses we use are from a big company called Zeiss. We picked two very different colour lenses, so we appeal to as many people as we can!
Sundown: This is a warm lens with a gradient that is darker on the top than on the bottom. This lens makes everything look warm.
Aurora: This is a green base lens with a semi mirrored coating that reflects tones of green and blue. Zeiss refer to this kind of coating as 'triflection'. This lens makes everything look a cool green.
The Zeiss lenses don’t come in cut to size, we receive them as big circles, almost the size of a Mcvities digestive biscuit...see the video below of when Jack made a pair of sunglasses out of digestive biscuits! Would you believe we still get messages from people asking us to buy a pair...I’m not sure in reality though how many people would actually buy them if we did develop them properly?
This round shape means we can have them cut to any of the 6 sizes we need to fit our frames. They are not cut to size by hand, or even by us here at Mosevic for that matter! A cool machine (That you can find at most opticians) measured each of our frames and scanned the size of the groove to cut our frames to the correct size each and every time. Once we receive them back they are ready to be fit into each frame individually by hand by Jack.
So what is the final stage of the final stage? And how does Jack fit the lenses?
Our handmade frames are made using two main components, Denim and Resin. Together they form a sturdy material, but they can be made more flexible using heat, this is how the lenses are inserted. Jack starts by warming up the frame with his heater (It might be old and dirty but if it isn't broke why fix it?) and can then insert the lens this way.
Once they have both been inserted into the frame, the frame is heated again, curved by hand and Jack removes any excess glue from the frame. But here comes the most important part...Jack has to try on each and every pair of frames to make sure they are wonderfully perfect before they are packaged up and sent out by me!
If you liked reading about this part of the making process, why not take a look at one of our latest YouTube shorts to see how its done!
I'll see you in two-ish weeks for our next article!