Eyeglass Frame Manufacturing: Hand Bench to ABB Robots

Eyeglass frame manufacturing sits somewhere between fashion and precision engineering. A front and two temples have to hold lenses within fractions of a millimetre, survive years of being folded and bent, and still look good enough to sell for hundreds of euros. This post covers the frame only, not the lenses. It starts in the hand workshops of Nuremberg, the Cadore valley and Sabae, moves through today's acetate and metal frame plants, and ends with robots that polish, weld and assemble frames and the jobs ABB arms could take on. The lens side has its own post on eyeglass lens labs.

A vendor arranges rows of eyeglass and sunglass frames at an outdoor market stall. Photo: PattayaPatrol / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How frames were bent, carved and filed by hand

Spectacles appeared in Italy in the late 13th century, and for centuries their frames were made one pair at a time. Craftsmen carved them from bone, horn, leather or wood, or bent them from brass and iron. Workshops in Nuremberg became known for cheap spectacles made in large numbers, including frames bent from a single length of wire that pinched the nose. Each pair took filing a groove to hold the lens, riveting a bridge and often making a case as well. The fit was rough by modern standards, and many buyers simply tried pairs until one seemed to help.

Bow Nuremberg spectacles with their case, made in Germany between 1651 and 1710. Photo: Wellcome Collection via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Industrial frame making in Italy began in the Cadore valley in the Dolomites. In 1878 Angelo Frescura and Giovanni Lozza opened what is described as the first Italian eyewear factory, in Calalzo di Cadore. The province of Belluno grew into a district of frame makers and their suppliers, and in 1961 Leonardo Del Vecchio founded Luxottica in nearby Agordo, at first as a maker of frame parts. Pieve di Cadore, next to Calalzo, now has an eyewear museum. Even in these factories most steps were still done at a bench, with files, small presses and buffing wheels.

Centro Cosmo in Pieve di Cadore, home of the Cadore eyewear museum. Photo: Antonio De Lorenzo / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

In Japan, frame making in Sabae, Fukui, started as winter work for farmers. In 1905 Gozaemon Masunaga, a local assembly member, invited skilled glasses makers to teach farming families a trade for the snowy months. Output was tiny at first, around 50 pairs a month by one account, all made by hand. Sabae makers later became known for working titanium, a light metal that is hard to solder and polish. Sources now put Sabae's share of Japan's frame production at over 90 percent, and many of its plants still depend on small teams of experienced finishers.

The Megane Museum building in Sabae, Japan's eyeglass frame capital, topped with a glasses logo. Photo: Opqr / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Inside an acetate and metal frame plant today

Modern frames come in two main families. Acetate frames are milled from thick sheets of cellulose acetate on CNC machines, tumbled in barrels with abrasive media for days, and then buffed by hand until the edges shine. Metal frames start as wire and strip that is stamped, drawn and bent, then joined at the bridge, the rims and the hinges. People keep buying them. On October 20, 2026, EssilorLuxottica reported third quarter revenue of about 7.49 billion euros, and coverage noted that ordinary eyewear held up while growth in its smart glasses slowed.

Walls of frames on display in an optical shop, the end point of a frame plant's output. Photo: Social eyewear / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

CNC milling and laser cutting replaced hand sawing years ago, and many metal frame lines now join parts by laser welding, which leaves a small, clean seam on a thin rim. Polishing has resisted automation longest, since a finisher judges each curve by eye and by touch. In 2020, researchers at Erciyes University in Turkey published a mechatronic system for robotic polishing of eyeglass frames, and a Chinese patent application describes a robot that feeds frame fronts and fits the temples. The welding side is covered in more depth in robotic laser welding.

A high power laser welding test at Lindoe Welding Technology, the joining method many metal frame lines use at a far smaller scale. Photo: Krorc / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

ABB has not announced a frame maker as a customer, so the cells below are possibilities. A compact IRB 1200 with ABB's force control option could press a frame against a buffing wheel at steady pressure, the way small metal parts such as taps are polished. A single arm YuMi IRB 14050 could pick tiny hinge screws and drive them, or place temples into fixtures for a welding cell. A GoFa CRB 15000 could load and unload CNC mills next to an operator. Paths like these are usually built and tested in RobotStudio before a real frame is touched.

The new generation ABB IRB 1200, launched in 2025, a compact arm for machine tending and small parts. Photo: ABB

Where frame production goes next

New materials will shape the next round of automation. On October 6, 2026, the French company ENGO began selling a limited Engo Titanium version of its AR running glasses with 3D printed titanium temples, at 28.9 grams and 599 euros. Printed parts come out close to final shape, yet they still need support removal, blasting and polishing, all of which can be done in a robot cell. Smart glasses also put batteries, circuit boards and cables inside the temples, so frame assembly is starting to resemble electronics assembly.

A titanium eyeglass frame, Oakley OX5086 Burrow, photographed in 2026. Photo: P1898 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Frame plants will probably keep a mix of machines and people. Robots are likely to take the repetitive steps first, such as loading mills, deburring, rough polishing, welding hinges and packing finished frames. Final buffing, colour matching on acetate and inspection of the finish are harder to hand over, because buyers notice small flaws. For people buying glasses, the change should mostly show up as faster production and more made to order options, such as frames sized from a face scan.

A single arm YuMi IRB 14050 in its cell on GE Healthcare's prototype line in Helsinki, the kind of arm that can drive tiny screws. Photo: ABB

Cost is the first obstacle. A frame brand may release hundreds of models a year in small batches, and every new shape needs fixtures and robot paths, which can cost more than the labour they save. Cobots such as GoFa cut the need for guarding and shorten setup, but someone still has to program and tune each polishing path. Skilled finishers take years to train, so the plants that do well will probably be the ones that pair their experienced people with robots and record that know-how in programs while those people are still on the floor.

An ABB GoFa CRB 15000 cobot at a work table. Photo: ABB

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