The manufacturing process,  How Bakelite radio cabinets are made. The information  and image below appear by kind permission of Tony Thompson of Vintage Radio World ...

Baekeland created Bakelite by combining carbolic acid and formaldehyde, derived from coal or timber. The brittle resin compound that is the product of this combination is allowed to cool before being ground into powder form and, usually, mixed with fillers such as wood flour (effectively, fine sawdust) or cotton. Pigments for colouring are added at this stage. Catalysts and other chemicals are then added and the mixture heated to create a thermosetting compound that required great heat and pressure to make it melt. Finally the resin compound is re-ground into powder and pressed into blocks known as pre-forms for use in moulding presses such as the Ekco 500 ton hydraulic press pictured below. Inserts such as brass screw retainers may be added to the mould before the pressure casting. Under great pressure and considerable heat the powder pre-forms become a viscous liquid that flows into the steel cabinet mould. The polymer material then forms cross links and sets permanently, retaining the exact contours of the original mould. Removed from the mould, any 'flash' (excess plastic around the mould extremities) is trimmed or ground away and another cabinet shell is completed. Because the original mould must be both extremely well made and finished and also be capable of withstanding the great pressures involved in the moulding process, the work of the mould maker was - and still is - highly skilled. 

The moulds themselves represent a high financial investment and it is only the concept of mass production that make their use economical. As a crude illustration of this, think about a single cabinet produced from such a mould. That solitary cabinet cost the total of the tooling cost - mould production cost - to make. However, produce 1,000 cabinets from the same mould and each will have cost little more than one-thousandth the cost of the original mould. This example is extremely simplified and there are many other factors to take into account if a true picture of manufacturing costs is to be appreciated - but the principle is correct. Compare with the production of wooden cabinets. Each will cost a finite sum, virtually regardless of the number produced (again, in simplified terms). So, 1,000 wooden cabinets will cost nearly 1,000 times more than a single cabinet.

Ekco 500 ton hydraulic Press shown below..