Frames
May 26 - Written by Colin Birkman- Opti World Founder
ROAV- The worlds thinnest folding frames
The collection
ROAV folding frames boast a fantastic selection of both opthalmic frames and sunglasses, with modern shapes, styles and colours, they are kind of futuristic too. They all proudly support their unique features of the specially designed, screwless folding parts. All ophthalmic frames are glazable and some of the sunglasses are glazable too.
Ophthalmic
The Ophthalmic range that I received was really nicely presented. The custom made box and storage pouch work well together.
This was the first time that I had held a pair of ROAV frames, so I wasn't too sure what to expect. When you slide them out of the pouch it is instantly clear to see the efforts made in the construction and design.
The screwless system works really well with the mechanical design of the sprung hinges. The structure of the frame is thin and flat and I was pleasantly surprised with how firm and strong these felt. The moving parts feel really fluid as they kind of click and spring into place which gave me confidence whilst unfolding.
The nose pads are foldable and flexible which aid to the closure mechanism of the frame. This also helps fit different bridges for various clients.
Sunglasses
The sunglasses range is really cool too. The collection also has the clever folding system, box and storage pouch. This pouch was made of a rubbery material which felt nice and had a modern look.
The lenses supplied with their sunglasses are all polarised and offer UV protection as standard. Some of the range is RX glazable, the one sent through wasn't a prescription compatible model, but the quality was just as good as the Ophthalmic model.
Thinking outside the box, there is nothing stopping you from creating a sunglasses pair from the Ophthalmic range if you wanted to, but naturally the frame styles are better suited for eye coverage with the sunglasses models.
Glazing- Assembly, Dismantling
Here I'm looking at how we take the frame apart as the standard rim screw isn't used here. I've not seen this system before so here is how it works.
There are three main parts, it uses it's own unique version of a nut, bolt and washer system, but in its own style.
A pretty standard style Hex nut holds the bolt from the inside of the frame, on top of a square washer.
The square washer has slots to accommodate the 3 pronged bolt that is inserted from the front.
The outer prongs of the bolt hold the two parts of the outer rim together, with the centre part having the thread for the Hex nut.
When you remove these three parts, the frame opens up to enable the inner rim to be removed.
The inner rim is made of the same material as the frame. I've glazed many frames with an internal rim before but not a metal one. The internal rim had a nice finish, something that will help towards an easy frame trace.
Watch this video to see how to take the lenses out of ROAV Optical eyewear...
Blocking & tracing
The frame can be traced in the traditional way, either for your own edger system or for remote tracing. One thing I was thinking about was the quality of the trace with the metal inner frame, especially at the join/cut part.
I was happy to see that my tracer didn't have any issues, bumps or knocks when passing over the join on the internal frame. This shows the quality of the workmanship as there are no rough parts with imperfections.
This was one of the things I noticed as soon as I started looking at this frame, it was how precisely everything lined up, this also gives me confidence when glazing something that is accurate and consistent.
Other methods of tracing still obviously work, such as lens axis orientation scanning and/or tracing using the lens itself, but I can't see this being something that is going to be required.
Edging
Here comes the glazing part. ROAV claim that they are glazable up to -5.00 to +4.00. There will obviously be some limitations when we incorporate PDs, heights, CYL powers and other aspects too.
I ran some test lenses through to see for myself and to see how easy they were to glaze. The base curve of the dummy lens and frame is relatively flat, I was intrigued to see how it would take a higher curved plus and a flatter minus.
For the test lenses, I used standard 1.5 stock lenses. The first cut was just a piano to get a feel for it all. I then went and cut a -3.00 SPH lens to see how they worked with the frame.
Either a run round with the hand edger or something like 0.05 off on the edger as an example (will vary with equipment used) will see that this all meets up, it all then goes together really nice.
Glazing these wasn't too difficult, no special equipment or tools needed, just a bit of patience with your first one to get a feel.
A quick tip
Take these apart and assemble over a lab tray, the 3 parts are small. I know this may be an obvious thing to many, but just use a tray, no one wants to spend time searching for nuts and bolts on the floor!
Adjustments
One thing I was interested to see, was how the frame can be adjusted to accept various lenses, in this case and example, increasing the frame curve to match the curvature of the lens and bevel placement.
In the pack
The presentation of the whole pack looks and feels really nice. Each order comes with then carry pouch, spare nose pads cleaning cloth and some useful information.
The information is a nice touch with regards to adjustments and care, along with the ROAV returns and warranty information. Being provided through an optical practice, these would no doubts be fitted correctly for your client, with the usual advice and aftercare given too.
Overview
To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect when I received these, I knew the quality was going to be great as it's from Bondeye Optical, but I wasn't too sure how they worked, especially with the glazing aspect.
I'd say that these are much better than I thought they could be, products such as this can sometimes be a bit gimmicky or even flimsy, but these are the polar opposite in my opinion. They obviously aren't your super tough pair of chunky safety specs, but they aren't made for that. These are doing a different job and helping in different ways and to be frank, kind of fun to wear and glaze.
We extend our total appreciation for the generous and detail work provided by
Mr. Colin Birkman
Opti World Founder
