A new pair of lenses is only half the job. The other half is getting them into the frame without cracking a rim, stripping a screw or marking the new lens on its first day. On most Ray-Bans that is a ten-minute job at the kitchen table. On a few, it is not a job to attempt at all.
What follows is arranged by frame type, because the frame is what decides the method. If you are not sure which model you have, our guide to finding your Ray-Ban model number shows you where the codes are printed. For what lenses are still made and what they cost, start with Ray-Ban replacement lenses.
Before you start
Lay a clean towel on a table, so a lens that slips lands on cloth rather than a worktop. Wash your hands first: new lenses take a fingerprint the moment you touch them.
Know what your frame is made of. Ray-Ban frames fall into three groups: plastic acetate, metal and acetate together, and full metal. Acetate comes out by hand. Anything with metal across the front of the lens comes out with a screwdriver, and it has to be the right one — an optical precision screwdriver, £5. A household driver will round off the head of an optical screw on the first turn.
Acetate frames: Wayfarer, New Wayfarer, Justin
The Wayfarer RB2140, New Wayfarer RB2132 and Justin RB4165 are the easy ones. If the old lens will come out, the new one will go in.
Warm the front of the frame first. Half a minute under warm running water, or ten to fifteen seconds with a hairdryer held well back, is enough to soften the acetate. Warm it, do not cook it — if the frame is too hot to hold comfortably, it is too hot for the lens.
- Push the old lens out from the inside, thumb flat against the back of it, working from the bridge outwards.
- As it starts to move, use the bottom rim to ease it clear. Do not pull on the top rim.
- Clean the groove inside the rim. Grit left in there will stop the new lens seating flat.
- Offer the new lens up top edge first, angled into the rim.
- Press the bottom edge home, working the bottom rim over the lens with your thumb. It seats with a small click.
Lenses are handed, left and right. If one fights you, try it in the other side before you force anything. The Justin is moulded nylon rather than acetate, but takes the same method.
Metal frames: Aviator RB3025
A metal rim does not stretch, so it has to be opened rather than flexed. That means the screw.
Two things catch people out on Aviators. There are often two screws close together: one holding the lens rim closed, one holding the arm on. And both have to be slack before the lens will move at all. Loosen them rather than taking them out — a screw left in its socket is a screw you cannot lose in the carpet.
- Slacken both screws until the rim opens slightly.
- Lift the old lens out. It should come with no real force.
- Clean the channel in the rim.
- Seat the new lens all the way round before closing anything up.
- Tighten the lens screw first, then the arm screw.
Tighten firmly, then stop. Overtightening is the commonest way people damage a frame at this stage. The thread strips, or the rim closes far enough to put a stress crack in a lens you have only just paid for.
Browline frames: Clubmaster RB3016
The Clubmaster is acetate across the brow with a metal rim underneath, and the lens is held by a screw in that lower rim. It behaves like a metal frame, not an acetate one, so do not try to push the lens out by hand.
Slacken the screw under the rim, open the rim just enough, and drop the old lens out downwards. Clean the channel, then set the new lens into the brow and check it is sitting properly along the top before you close the rim. If the top edge is not home in the acetate, tightening the screw will simply pull the lens crooked.
The screws you may meet
Three types turn up on Ray-Ban frames, and the driver matters more than the technique.
- Phillips head. The cross slot, and the most common by far. A standard optical cross-point driver fits it.
- Flat slot. A single straight slot, and it needs a flat driver of roughly the right width. A cross-point put into a slot head will slip and chew the slot out.
- Octagonal full-bearing. Found on the Tech range, and across rimless and wrap-around designs generally. This one takes a specific tool, not a screwdriver.
If you open your frame and find the third sort, that is your signal to stop. Individual screws and model screw kits are in Ray-Ban replacement parts if yours is damaged or has gone missing.
When to hand it over
Some frames are not worth the gamble, and we would rather say so than sell you a lens you go on to break.
- Rimless frames. Nothing holds the lens but fixings passing through the lens itself. Get it wrong and you crack a lens, not a screw.
- Wrap-around frames. The curve means the lens goes in under tension and at an angle, one way only. They are unforgiving.
- Anything using an octagonal full-bearing screw.
- Frames that are decades old. Acetate goes brittle with age: it does not flex, it snaps, and warming it is not always enough.
- Any frame you have already tried once. A second attempt with more force is how frames break.
Or let us fit them
Fitting adds £10 to any lens on the Ray-Ban replacement lenses page. Choose the fitting option when you order, send the frame in, and we fit the lenses on the bench, check the alignment and send it back. On a rimless or wrap-around frame it is comfortably the cheaper option.
A small independent optician will often help for very little too, and we would pick one of those over a high street chain.
If it is the frame rather than the lens that has gone — a cracked rim, a hinge pulled out, a snapped arm — that is a repair, not a fitting. Our repair service starts at £40, and where a job needs parts beyond the standard repair we come back to you with a price first. Postage on a repair is free both ways: we send you a free post label for the frame, and return postage is included.