Optivisor Da4

[Mario Roby]

Hellosuggestion for optivisor use , buy the lowest power you can

work with , if it is your first, you will be surprised at the

effects of the # 3 plate . As you age you will appreciate being

able to step up in power . I started using an optivisor at age 30

, now nearing 50 I still have one plate left to go [ #10] , I have

worked with a man who started with the #10 plate and regreted it as

it is now harder for him to see as he , too , is aging . and his

only options start getting expensive and cubersome [ microscope /

video ] I urge you to use the least amount of " help" you can . Buy

the #3 and if needed you can buy a stronger lense only and switch it

in / out of your optivisor .

Future potential scratch builds: HMS Lyme (from NMM plans); Le Gros Ventre (from Ancre monographs), Dutch ship from Ab Hoving book, HMS Sussex from McCardle book, Philadelphia gunboat (Smithsonian plans)

The Optivisor by Donagan Optical Co. with GLASS lenses is the one to get. The lenses come in different magnifications. Go to the Donagan web site to see all the different lenses available and then you can search Amazon for the best price. Stay away from the plastic lenses - I gave my plastic lens unit away after trying a set with glass lenses at a trade show - even before the new set arrived. They have a magnifying Opti-loupe that can be put on either side and I recommend you get one. I have the DA-5 and the DA-10 lenses - the 10's are for very close work. The Opti-loupe lets you get higher magnification w/o having to switch out the lens plate. I Highly recommend this untit.

Whatever kind you opt for, I recommend one that has the lenses in some kind of shroud, like the one Kurt linked to. I tried one that has the lenses sorta just dangling out there (like this one), and I found the un-magnified stuff in my peripheral vision very distracting. Plus, the interchangeable snap-in lenses were acrylic, and one of them broke almost immediately. I went back to a $3 visor from Harbor Freight -- works for me, but I bet the Donegal Optical set is pretty nice, too.

Does any one have a lighting system on their Optivisor? I added one but it stop working really shortly after turning it on so am looking for a better one. I like my optivisor but it would be so much better when you add a light to it. Gary

I first had generic magnifying visors before I bought a genuine Optivisor. The difference is night and day. The genuine Optivisor was SO much better than the cheaper generic ones. The better lens quality makes a huge difference.

I have an optivisor and while it does work ok, it gets tiresome to wear at times. I think I've found an alternative for some tasks. Recently my auto remote stopped working and I found that a tiny 4-contact switch had broken off the PC board. So I soldered it back on (what fun). I took a couple of pics to illustrate the problem, and then I realized that my cellphone would be very good for close work and more comfortable than the optivisor. I'm re-engineering a desk lamp to hold the cellphone for this purpose. Here are the pics that I took while soldering on the switch that show the fine detail. (After re-soldering the switch, I globbed on some DAP RapidFuse superglue to ensure that it will stay in place.)

The cellphone must mounted on a stand or arm of some sort. One of the old Luxo extension arm lamps would be perfect for adaptation, or the old semi-rigid gooseneck lamps. Alternatively. a machinist's dial indicator positioner could work too, but it would be a bit short.

I have a background in research surgery, where occasionally one must work through an operating microscope that has a similar magnification range. It takes a bit of training, but it's doable. It helps if the forearms are supported, as some people eat at a table with the forearms resting on the edge of the table, near the elbows. Sometimes, the dominant hand is laid upon the wrist of the non-dominant handarm which is used as artist's maul stick.

The Nautical Research Guild has published our world-renowned quarterly magazine, The Nautical Research Journal, since 1955. The pages of the Journal are full of articles by accomplished ship modelers who show you how they create those exquisite details on their models, and by maritime historians who show you the correct details to build. The Journal is available in both print and digital editions. Go to the NRG web site (www.thenrg.org) to download a complimentary digital copy of the Journal. The NRG also publishes plan sets, books and compilations of back issues of the Journal and the former Ships in Scale and Model Ship Builder magazines.

I was looking at buying one of the Optivisors from Squadron.com. I see that they come in a range of magnifications, and I was wondering what magnification people find most useful?

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to try them out, and it is hard to visualise what the different magnification would actually look like, so any advice on what people find most useful would be appreciated.

tell me about it! I am 51. I have the 3.5 mag and yes they fit over my glasses. I find if I use them without the galsses I can get in even closer. Just depends what I need at that time. I am near sighted with astigmatism.

Experiences with magnifiers seem to vary tremendously from individual to individual. I know lots of people have good luck with Optivisors (and similar products; there are quite a few different brands on the market). I've never been able to get along with them. My eyes (with or without my glasses) have trouble focusing with them, and they seem to wreck my depth perception. (For example, if I'm trying to paint a detail on a model and I look through an Optivisor, I can't tell accurately how far the brush is from the model.)

I had an interesting conversation about the latter problem once with a veteran ship modeler, who was restoring a model at Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum. I noticed he was using an optivisor, and asked him whether it had ever given trouble with depth perception. He laughed and said, "I learned a long time ago to judge depths with one eye. I'm blind in the other one."

I was born near-sighted; I have trouble recognizing people from across a room, but for many years I was able to build models with no magnification at all. (People used to rib me because I took my glasses off whenever I worked on a model.) I'm 56 years old now, and have trouble focusing both eyes on an object that's close to me. (Like most other people, I have eyes that have aged differently; any device that provides the same magnification for both eyes simply won't work for me.) The basic solution to that problem, of course, is prescription bifocals, but even they don't give me the kind of close-up vision I want for model building.

These little gadgets are simple, cheap, and effective. I also had the optician make me a pair of "single-vision" glasses that match the bottom half of the bifocals. I leave that pair of glasses, with the "flip-up" lenses attached, in the workshop, and use them only for model building.

Nothing is quite as good as a pair of young eyes that can focus at short range without magnification. The combination I've just described seems to be the best option for me. But other pairs of eyes work differently, and other people find other devices work better for them. I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of money on a magnifier till you've had a chance to find out how well it works for you.

Jtilley, it sounds like you may have mild ambliopia, or some other condition that makes using both eyes through a set of lenses difficult. That, or the Optivisor has an interpupilary distance that is wrong for you. Do you have the same problem with binoculars?

I have refractive amblyopia (non-reversible, in my case) - have had it since 2nd grade, when they called it 'lazy eye' - my right eye tends to wander and has trouble focusing on what the left, dominant eye is looking at. Over the years it has become next to useless, but I can still see out of it - just not at all clearly. If I close my good eye I can read the "Reply to an Existing Message' text above this message box, but nothing smaller than that size type.

Anyway, back in 1990 I quit building models because my wife was about to have our first baby and I didn't want fumes all over the house with a baby around; shortly after that my eyesight took a nose dive and I mentally wrote off ever being able to build models again. Back in December I got the itch again, and spoke with a friend who is an Optometrist about what my options were in order to improve my vision in general, and for building models specifically. He told me that the best thing - for me - was to get contact lenses (all previous doctors had told me that due to my sight problem I wasn't able to get contact lenses) and to use a general magnifier, like the kind mounted on a goose-neck arm, instead; that way I'd be able to adjust the distance between my eyes and the magnifier as needed. With an optivisor, he said, the distance between your eyes and the magnifier is fixed and may not be the best distance for me. He also recommended against using fluorescent lights in my work area and to just use a regular light bulb (100w) in a regular desk-mounted lamp to illuminate what I need to see.

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