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In addition to assembling metals, B&L Ireland's personnel
assembled plastics. B&L Hong Kong did not perform any operations
that resulted in plastic sunglasses and did not even sell many
B&L plastic sunglasses assembled outside B&L Hong Kong. This was
principally because the bridge on the plastics was too wide for
the average Asian face, which tended to be smaller than the
average Caucasian face, and, unlike metals, plastics did not have
nosepads that could be adjusted to fit the Asian face.
In assembling plastics, B&L Ireland's personnel used a
heating tunnel equipped with temperature and speed controls in
order to render the plastic fronts sufficiently malleable so as
to permit the insertion of the lenses and the formation of the
headcurve of the fronts. The heating tunnel, which contained a
conveyor belt running through the machine, heated the front with
electrical elements located on the top of the tunnel. Although
the specifications for a particular SKU established initial
settings for the temperature and speed, the operator was respon-
sible for adjusting those controls as necessary to facilitate the
lensing process. If a front had not been hot enough when it
exited the tunnel, the operator could not have inserted both
lenses without damaging either the fronts or the lenses. On the
other hand, if the front had been too hot when it exited the
heating tunnel, it could have suffered heat damage such as sunken
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