Acetate frames: manufacturing process

These are from 1994 Real, a Japanese frame manufacturer, and while a bit boring, they show, quite obviously, how a frame is born from a block of acetate. Some stages of production are mechanized, which greatly minimizes human error (and reduces accident rate probably as well; you know how people are with heavy equipment, especially on Mondays and Fridays). Other stages are nothing but old fashioned grinding and buffing, lots of buffing. This is how the lustrous surfaces you see on handmade frames are created. The industrial junk, on opposite end, is not only inferior because of automated production, which translates into less comfort and poorer wearability. The finishes created by machines cannot possibly compete with finishes produced by obsessive human buffing as shown above.