A professional who operates polishing machines to polish ophthalmic lenses or optical elements, such as lenses, prisms, and flats for use as contact or eyeglass lenses or in precision optical instruments. Responsibilities include:

• Mounts optical element on holding tool, using tape or cement.
• Selects lap i, according to size of optical element and applies pitch or other adhesive to polishing face of lap.
• Presses optical element into adhesive to form polishing surface.
• Mounts holding tool on polishing machine spindle and positions lap and element assembly over tool.
• Applies abrasive, or positions abrasive flow nozzle over element, and starts machine that polishes element.
• Observes polishing operation and periodically stops machine to rinse element with water and to test element for conformance to specifications, using test lens, monochromatic light, microscope, and power determining and optical centering instruments.
• May guide polishing lap manually over element.
• May mix adhesive according to formula.
• May be designated according to type of lens polished as contact-lens polisher.