Next was the Shocking bath. This isn’t what you think! There are no unscrupulous hygiene practices afoot at the TD Factory. This was a vat of oil, maintained at a specific temperature, to enable the setting of any adjustments made to buffalo horn frames. Originally when Tom was experimenting with horn frame production he had used an old ice-cream freezer for this. Want not, waste not!
Adjacent to the “shocking freezer” was an almost “steam-punk” looking pneumatic ram. This was the temple-shooting machine. This fired the strengthening core, which for all TD Tom Davies frames is high grade titanium, into the acetate temples. On the same desk was the silver solder apparatus and titanium pulse welder.
Behind this row of equipment, the underneath of the mezzanine is efficiently used. No part of the factory is free from Tom’s innovation and this area is no exception. Housed here, the tumbling and polishing drums. In mainstream spectacle frame production, the pieces of each frame are tumbled in large drums, often filled with bamboo pellets.
Due to the individual nature of the TD Tom Davies eyewear, this just wasn’t up to Tom’s exacting standards. He has both varied the sizing of these drums to enable individual and multiple frames to be tumbled efficiently, but also uses different types of wooden pellets to achieve different levels of desired finish. Tom doesn’t believe in “one size fits all!”
Adjacent to the tumbling is the “elves grotto!” Here the state-of-the-art laser engraving is conducted and stock ready to be shipped is housed. Tom was excited to say they have in excess of one million UK pounds (C$1.7million) of ready-to-wear frames ready for customers drastically reducing wait times and improving shipping efficiencies.
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