When you contract with a manufacturer to make a component part of your product, you will probably spend a good deal of time designing the part and determining the perfect plastic composite to use. Once the design and material are approved, the rest is a...
In the western world, plastic is a part of every person’s life, but many of us don’t realize just how much plastic is all around us. Gradually, as the technologies surrounding the creation of plastics (such as thermoforming) have become more sophisticated, plastics have infiltrated...
CNC means Computer Numerical Control. This means a computer converts the design produced by Computer Aided Design software (CAD), into numbers. The numbers can be considered to be the coordinates of a graph and they control the movement of the cutter. In this way the computer...
Plastic is everywhere. If you are reading this, then you are either in direct contact with plastic right now or likely very close to lots of it. That’s because plastic is in almost every single electronic device, from your computer to your smart phone to...
You have an idea for your next great product, but turning that vision into reality is going to take some engineering work on your part. You’ll need to figure out how to construct the product’s component parts, which means developing design schematics and materials consultations....
Are you designing a new product but aren’t sure exactly what type of plastic to use for its component parts? That’s understandable. Plastic is an incredibly variable substance, especially with all the new plastic-related discoveries we continue to make. These days, we can create soft...
The thermoforming process we use to create plastic components for our clients starts with large, flat sheets of plastic that we heat and then add pressure to in order to form the components. The excess plastic is then trimmed away to complete the plastic component....
In the plastics trade, we often talk about manufacturing “male” and “female” tools. What exactly does this mean? No, we’re not talking about creating specific tools for men and different tools for women. Rather, when we look at connectors and fasteners, we see that there are two...
Five-axis CNC trimming produces parts with repeatable, close tolerances. There are several 'keys' to achieving consistent and accurately trimmed parts, but first a description of the equipment and trimming process. CNC trimming equipment has been described as a 'Computer controlled router'. This simplistic description does not...
Thermoforming is a highly efficient method of turning big sheets of plastic into the things that we have come to rely in everyday life, from the lids on our soft drinks to the dashboard panels in our cars. When you start looking a little more...