# Optical Forums > General Optics and Eyecare Discussion Forum >  does anyone else have trouble adjusting ray ban plastics?

## rachel42486

I have such trouble adjusting ray bans sometimes! Currently, I'm trying to adjust the RB Jr 9047, to no avail. Just wondered if anyone had any pointers or knew something I didn't.

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## chip anderson

Ray-Ban uses some wierd plastics.   Ruined one last week.   No markings about cold mount or whatever but the damn thing seems to shrink the nearer you get it warm enough to be pliable.

Chip

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## edKENdance

Not anymore!   :Wink:

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## optilady1

I'm not sure what the actual material is, but the really light weight, kinda clear or translusent in color plastic, pretty much used to dissolve in alcohol.  I had the wonderful experience of melting a frame as I was dispensing it infront of a patient at the LC.

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## chip anderson

Ed: It was a new frame (wayfarer) just last Friday.    Lux hasn't done anything to improve Ray-Ban, just found a lower priced mfg. in China.

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## RIMLESS

You must be talking about that "Raybanium"  material.  At least that's what I call it :)

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## SharonB

Might be polypropionate - it only expands when heated (ya can't shrink this stuff), and the surface color is "fugitive" and can come off with alcohol or other cleaners. But more likely polyamide, a nylon derivative that also has the color applied on the surface. Alcohol will make the color disappear, and also cause the material to fracture. Polyamide is one of those materials with a negative coefficient of expansion - it heat shrinks. Both are injection molded, which is much cheaper than traditional zyl manufacturing methods that involve cutting, skiving, and drum polishing. 
For me - BRING BACK MAZZUCHELLI ZYL!!!! No Mo voo-doo plastic! Or, Optyl ( I love that stuff - just don't try to replace a hidden hinge in it).

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## doctorjmjb

Optyl!  I hate Optyl!  The first time that I encountered Optyl was when I was a student in Mexico on a VOSH trip.  I had a patient who was around +10 with -3 cyl, I found a pair of glasses that was really close to his Rx, nothing else was even in the ball park.  I had the patient try them on to check the fit and then I went to the salt pan to adjust them. After about half a dozen back and forth trips and 20 minutes later, along with burned finger tips, I managed to snap one temple in half.  I couldn't have felt any worse (I was also suffering from a case of Montezuma's Revenge to boot.) Did I mention how much I hate Optyl?

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## Mrmessi

The temple tips on some of them are very thick and hard, you can't even bend them, it's either a good fit or it isn't.

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## optilady1

I just think that it's sad that the industry has gotten so far away from making a quality frame that we can ADJUST!!!!!  Horn and wood and thick temples are all well and good, but if you can't physically adjust the frame, than what good are they?  And it doesn't matter where they are made, there are plenty of frames made by 4 year olds in China that I can put more panto into, where as there's beautifully handmade stuff from Paris that you can't do a thing to.

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## cocoisland58

> The temple tips on some of them are very thick and hard, you can't even bend them, it's either a good fit or it isn't.


Quite right and once I figure out a frame is going to be unadjustable I get real picky about who I sell it to.

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## CalCal

Is almost impossible to adjust the wayfarer.  That thing won't take any heat.

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## tdj

> Not anymore!



Same :)

Used to have a heck of a time with them, though. Forget doing anything with a Daddy-O or Jackie Ohh or Wayfarer temple. Just FORGET IT.

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## edKENdance

> Same :)
> 
> Used to have a heck of a time with them, though. Forget doing anything with a Daddy-O or Jackie Ohh or Wayfarer temple. Just FORGET IT.


Those Daddy-O's used to be good for higher rx's.  Insert a lens that's just the tiniest bit big though and that damned frame would snap.  Usually right at the nasal.

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## idispense

> I just think that it's sad that the industry has gotten so far away from making a quality frame that we can ADJUST!!!!! Horn and wood and thick temples are all well and good, but if you can't physically adjust the frame, than what good are they? And it doesn't matter where they are made, there are plenty of frames made by 4 year olds in China that I can put more panto into, where as there's beautifully handmade stuff from Paris that you can't do a thing to.



It is not easy but you could steam  bend the wood temples if they are not laminated  from smaller pieces and glued.

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## Chris Ryser

Above post's fit an old plastic material the italians used for optical frames in the 1950s for many years in older days..........*Casein
*
*here is a descrption that makes interesting reading.....................................*

*Casein plastics were introduced at the beginning of the 20th century, their starting material being the protein in cows milk, precipitated by the action of the enzyme rennin.

*Although casein is readily moulded to shape under moderate heat and pressure, it does not produce a stable material for manufacture until it has become hardened by soaking in formalin (5% solution of formaldehyde in water) for a long period. Unfortunately, this causes much distortion so casein plastics are almost always produced by machining stock material such as sheet, rod, tube or buttton blanks (small discs). After machining, casein may be polished either mechanically with abrasives or chemically with a 'dip polish'.
The material readily takes a surface dye, so coloured items can be quickly made from pale coloured stock items. This was especially important for the button trade which was the principal consumer of casein plastics.

As well as buttons and buckles, casein was also used for knitting pins, fountain pen and propelling pencil barrels, dressing table ware and a host of other items.

*In more detail*

Casein, the protein in milk was used by the Ancient Egyptians as a fixative for pigments in wall paintings. It has also been used as a constituent in various glues but it appears not to have been used as the basis of a solid plastics material until the end of the 19th century. Krisch, head of a large firm of printers in Hanover experimented with casein to make a washable white board for replacing the slates used in school - paper was too expensive at that time for use by children to practise writing. He collaborated with Adolf Spitteler, a chemist in Bavaria and on July 15th 1899, a patent for "plastic compositions" was taken out in Germany.

The patent was taken up by firms in Germany (Vereinigten Gummivarenfabriken, at its factory in Harburg) and in France by Pellerin and Orosdi (Compagnie Francaise de la Galalithe, at Levallois Perret). The product was introduced under the trade name Galalith and was first shown at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900. A lot of development work was still required to produce a stable material, and the two companies merged in 1904 to form the International Galalith Gesellschaft Hoff and Company with a new factory in Harburg. A process starting with dried casein granules, known as the dry process, was developed and this was to become the universally adopted method for casein plastics manufacture and remained virtually unchanged throughout its history.

In Britain, a wet process starting with milk curds was patented in 1909 by a Russian student, Victor Schutze, from Riga. This material was called Syrolit and a factory of the same name was set up in a disused cloth mill at Stroud in Gloucestershire. However, it was not successful and by 1913 the company was bankrupt. A new company, was established at the same premises to manufacture casein using the dry process. The new product was called Erinoid and this was also adopted as the name of the company. Production commenced in 1914 and as supplies of Galalith were cut off at the commencement of World War I, the material found a ready market and button manufacturers from Birmingham were waiting on the doorstep for the first consignments. Lactoid, made by BX Plastics was introduced in 1922 at their Larkswood Factory in Higham Station Avenue, London. Young & Wolf Ltd. had a small production unit located at Bridgend Works, Stonehouse in Gloucestershire - they manufactured mainly rod, button blanks and knitting needles from about 1930.Young and Wolf pioneered the slicing of casein button blanks from rod in the UK.Charles Horner Ltd. of Halifax, England. like Young & Wolf, also produced casein plastics mainly in the form of knitting needles, button blanks and rod. Their brand name was Dorcasine.

continue: ----------------------------> http://www.plastiquarian.com/index.php?id=60

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## rdcoach5

Chris can we call this material , for short, CASEIN CRAP ?

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## THE MEB

Funny you should mention this, I was delivering what appeared to be a standard zyl frame by guess(viva) the temples were white, which I thought odd since the front was tortoise in color. When I heated up the temples to put a bend on the temple tip it didn't budge. Turns out it felt and looked like bake light, it wasn't budging and I wasn't trying to heat it up anymore. Strangest material for temples I ever have dealt with, the inabilty to heat it to put a bend on it was incredible. It felt as if it was very brittle.

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## uncut

> Chris can we call this material , for short, CASEIN CRAP ?


Perhaps DORCasien?

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## SeaU2020

I had this happen today with a Safilo Hugo boss frame....not re-ordering that one!

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## optimensch

Here's my 2 cents. The main problem we've had is adjusting the pumpkin head effect after a flat-base Rx is mounted (temples too wide). Our most effective solution has been a little UV adhesive on the temple front-end or the back of the frame-front where the temple meets the frame front. Easy to build up enough thickness to get the right fit. We use dymax 3094 and we have a quick-cure hi output lamp, but with patience you can use a burton lamp too.

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## Chris Ryser

> *Chris can we call this material , for short, CASEIN CRAP ?
> 
> *



In the 1950s the Italians had the Casein frames and the French had another crappy one called Rhoptix, both of them gave their countries a bad quality angle on optical frames.

The only good stuff came out of Germany at the time, like Marwitz and Hauser, Metzler, Nigura and some others.

Could be that somebody in China came up again with the old Casein.

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