A Master Optician's Guide to Hand Grinding and Polishing

Hand grinding and polishing transforms raw glass and crystals into precision prototypes, even when conventional CNC technology reigns. This artisanal process leverages intuitive skill where fingers become versatile fixtures, offering a cost-effective solution for small production runs without the expense of complex tooling.
Why hand grinding and polishing? In a world of CNC machines, 3D shaping printers and mills, why would anyone need to work by hand? Advanced technologies require inflexible fixturing. Working by hand means your fingers become those fixtures. Intuition is the adaptable program used to reach the specified goal.

Hand grinding and polishing is the most basic process for turning raw glass and crystals into a prototype to be copied for production. When producing one or a handful of parts, it’s often less expensive to hand grind and polish than to create the fixtures and tooling for production. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but 10th wave flatness and 10 second parallelism are quite achievable by hand.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.