A Lindberg is not built like other glasses. There are no screws in the hinges, no rivets through the front, and on the Air Titanium range no conventional hinge at all — the temple is a single length of titanium wire that clips into the frame front and holds by its own spring tension. That is why the whole thing weighs about as much as a paperclip.
It is also why, when a Lindberg goes wrong, none of the usual fixes apply. Here is what actually breaks, what we can do about it, and what it costs.
Why an optician turns them away
Take a broken Lindberg into most high street practices and you will be sent away again. It is rarely unwillingness. It is the toolkit.
There is no screw in the hinge to tighten, so the screwdriver that fixes nine frames out of ten does nothing here. The parts are specific to the collection and the size, and they are not in a generic drawer of spares. And titanium does not behave like the nickel alloys most frames are made from: it will take a bend, but pushed the wrong way it work-hardens and snaps instead of yielding. One confident adjustment can turn a ten-minute job into a frame that needs a new arm.
We have been repairing frames by hand in the UK since 1999. Lindberg is one of the very few brands we run a separate service for, because it genuinely needs one.
What usually goes wrong
The nose pads perish. By a distance the most common job. Lindberg's silicone pads clip on rather than screw on, and after a couple of years of skin oils and sun they go yellow, go hard, or vanish entirely.
The temple tips wear through. Same material, same story. The silicone sleeve on the end of the wire temple splits and the bare titanium starts pressing behind the ear.
The frame sits crooked. One lens lower than the other, or the glasses lean on your face. On a wire temple that is almost always a bend rather than a break, and it is correctable — by someone who knows how far the metal will go before it stops coming back.
A temple loses its grip. Air Titanium arms are held by tension, not by a hinge. Opened too wide too often and that tension goes, so the arm feels loose or drops out of the front altogether.
A rim or a bridge gives up. On Rim models the small screws holding the lens can loosen or strip. On Spirit frames the bridge itself can bend past recovery, and at that point it is a part to be replaced rather than a repair to be made.
What the £60 service covers
The Lindberg repair service starts at £60 and is a full service of the frame rather than a single fix. It includes:
- Your existing lenses taken out, refitted and aligned
- Fresh genuine Lindberg silicone nose pads
- Replacement temple end tips
- A full inspection and adjustment of every component
- An ultrasonic deep clean
- A final quality check before it goes back to you
It does not include new lenses. If your lenses are scratched or cracked, tell us when you order and we will talk about that separately.
If the frame needs spare parts beyond the standard service — a bridge, say, or a temple — we contact you with a price first. Nothing beyond the £60 job gets done without you agreeing to it.
Parts you can simply order
Not everything needs to come to the bench. Plenty of Lindberg problems are a part rather than a repair, and those we post out. Our Lindberg replacement parts are genuine Lindberg components, not aftermarket copies:
- Silicone nose pads — several shapes and sizes, including the round Air and Air Rim pads in medium 7mm and large 10mm, plus flat, large slim and tear drop profiles. £10 a pair, or £20 if you would rather we fitted them.
- Silicone temple end tips — standard and ball end. £10.
- Spirit replacement bridges — plain, polished silver and polished gold, in small, medium and large clip sizes. £90, or £110 fitted by us.
- Lindberg cases — £25.
All of them are supplied through our authorised dealer account.
Nose pads and temple tips are genuinely a home job: they clip and slide on, and no tool is involved. If you are not sure which pad you have, our nose pad sizing guide covers how to measure what is on the frame now.
What has to be sent in
Anything structural. Frame straightening, temple replacement, bridge fitting, rim screws, restoring tension to a loose arm, and any job where the lenses have to come out and go back in. These are not stubbornness on our part — they need the frame in front of us so the alignment can be checked properly and the whole thing tested before it is boxed.
Getting it here costs you nothing. Postage on a repair is free both ways: we send you a free post label for the frame, and return postage is included in the price of the service. If you would rather use a different postage service, you are welcome to upgrade to a paid one at your own cost.
Most Lindberg repairs are finished within five to seven working days of the frame arriving. If yours needs a part ordering in, it will run longer and we will tell you that when we quote.
Is it worth doing?
Almost always. A Lindberg front outlasts its silicone by years, and a frame that has been sitting in a drawer because one pad fell off is a £10 problem, not a new pair of glasses. Even the bigger jobs sit well under the cost of replacing the frame.
The honest exception is a front that has been crushed or a temple that has snapped clean on a discontinued model. We will tell you if that is where you are rather than take the frame in and hand it back.
If what you have is not a Lindberg, the same bench handles everything else — see our repair service, or read more about how our repairs work.