Repeatability is engineered, not promised — tooling, locked documentation, and measurable acceptance criteria are what make the 50th part match the first. The procurement-side guide to how recurring acrylic production actually works, from qualification to change control.
The part looked perfect leaving the laser — and crazed into a web of micro-cracks the moment cement touched it. Annealing is the oven cycle that prevents that failure, and it is invisible in every part it saved. What it is, when it’s required, and how to spec it.
Instead of writing “polished, flawless finish,” write the grade — Production, Display, or Museum Archival, each defined by the Inspection Distance at which cosmetic characteristics may become visible. The drawing-note syntax, per surface, with the cost logic.
The word polished names neither a method nor an acceptance criterion. How the Acrylic Fabrication Standards Framework splits finish into what was done to the edge, how good the result must be, and how bonded joints are judged — one coherent spec language.
Flame, buff, and diamond polishing are different processes with different results, not better and worse versions of the same thing. What each one actually does to an acrylic edge, which grades each can serve, and the one sequencing mistake that ruins bonded work.
Custom acrylic is still bought and sold in adjectives, and adjectives cannot be measured. Here is why we replaced ours with published, checkable criteria — and what publishing them costs the shop that does it.
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