We repair, rebuild and restore good eyewear in our Digbeth workshop, including plenty of frames people have already been told can’t be saved.
Best suited to well-made, vintage, handmade or sentimental frames. If the glasses were essentially disposable when they were made, specialist repair usually won’t make much sense.
Not just screws and nose pads. We work on broken bridges, damaged hinges, rivets, acetate, metalwork, polishing and the awkward jobs that usually end with somebody saying, “You’ll probably need a new frame.”
Sometimes they’re right. Quite often, they’re not.
A tired acetate frame can look completely finished when most of the damage is only on the surface. Years of scratches, dullness and general abuse can often be polished away, bringing back the depth, colour and finish that made the frame good in the first place.
We can also rebuild worn components, replace damaged hinges and sort out years of questionable adjustments. The aim isn’t to make an old frame look vaguely less knackered. It’s to make it worth wearing again.
A handmade acetate frame. Something vintage. A discontinued model. A pair that fits you better than anything you’ve found since. Or simply glasses you’ve worn for ten years and have no intention of giving up.
Those are the jobs we like. The original price matters far less than whether the frame was made well enough to give us something to work with.
A £20 frame with a snapped moulded hinge has not suddenly become a restoration project just because it broke. Very cheap eyewear is often glued, moulded or built around components that were never intended to be replaced.
We can sometimes repair it, but if the work is going to cost considerably more than the glasses did, we’ll say so. There’s no point spending workshop time trying to turn something disposable into a family heirloom.
The optical industry is very good at selling replacement frames and surprisingly bad at asking whether the one you already own is still perfectly good.
If the frame fits, suits you and was made properly, replacing the whole thing because one component has failed is often a bit daft. Repair it. Polish it. Put new lenses in it. Carry on wearing it.
Even better. If we’re restoring the frame, it can be the perfect time to update the prescription, replace scratched lenses, add proper sunglasses or upgrade the lens design entirely.
A good old frame with excellent new lenses is often a much better pair of glasses than starting again for the sake of it.
Book an appointment and let us have a proper look at the frame.
Repair, restoration, new lenses, or occasionally the deeply disappointing answer that the glasses are finished.
If it’s worth doing, it goes into the workshop and we make it wearable again.
If your prescription is up to date, we can usually combine the repair with our Re-Lens My Glasses service or a Bring Your Own Prescription appointment.
A repair gets your glasses working again. A restoration goes further and brings a well made frame properly back to life, through soldering, reshaping, polishing and rebuilding worn areas. We do both. We specialise in the second.
The ones worth keeping. Vintage eyewear, handmade frames, independent brands, old favourites and family heirlooms, particularly frames that fit perfectly and refuse to be replaced. A designer logo doesn’t guarantee a quality frame, so we judge the frame itself, not the badge on the side.
Often, yes. Our workshop regularly carries out hinge repairs, acetate polishing, metal frame repairs and vintage eyewear restoration, work that takes proper workshop time rather than a quick fix at a repair counter. Some jobs are straightforward. Others need more involved workshop work, and we’ll tell you which yours is.
Yes. Some frames are too brittle, some have already been repaired too many times, and some weren’t particularly well made in the first place. If a new pair of glasses is the better option, we’ll say so. If your frame deserves another decade of life, we’ll say that too.
Yes, through our Re-Lens My Glasses service, including single vision, varifocals, occupational lenses, prescription sunglasses and Rodenstock lenses. Bring the glasses you want repaired along with any broken parts you’ve kept, plus your current prescription or existing glasses if you’re thinking about new lenses too. If your prescription has changed, book an Eye Exam first.