Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Processing Plastic: What You Need To Know

By Lenna Stockwell


Go to any store, office or home and you will find a wide variety of items created from plastic. Of course, there are many different types of plastics and many different ways to create products made of plastic. Here are some different methods that are used to process plastic and some examples of the products created by each method.

If you are planning on producing a large number of items, injection molding might be an option for you to consider. While injection molding can be used to create products out of metal or glass, plastic is the most common material. Granules of thermoplastic, which is plastic that becomes moldable when heated, are melted and then injected into molds and then cooled. Once cooled, the product is ejected from the mold and the process starts again with more melted plastic. The end result is very high quality, but the cost for injection molding is quite high, which is why companies often opt to use thermoforming to create their products.

Thousands of items are created each day using a process known as thermoforming, and it has some similarities to injection molding. Instead of using granules of plastic, this is a procedure where plastic sheets are heated and then formed into a specific shape. A mold of the product or package is created, and then the heated plastic is fitted inside and the excess plastic is trimmed away. Thermoforming companies produce products for virtually every industry, including food companies, retail companies, electronics manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and agricultural companies.

Depending on your needs, there are multiple ways to complete the process of thermoforming. Vacuum forming is an excellent and cost effective option for those who need larger parts, prototype parts and items that simply don't have a large amount of detail. The plastic sheets are heated and then vacuum pulls the pliable thermoplastic down into the mold where it is fitted, cooled and trimmed.

If your product needs to have printing on it that is either raised or recessed or perhaps has sharp edges or more details, then you probably will want to opt for pressure forming. This combines the force of vacuum along with pressure. This allows the plastic to better fit inside a mold. The thermoform sheet is pressed down from the top while vacuum also pulls the plastic from the bottom.

There are thermoforming companies that can assist you with all of the elements of creating your products, from helping with design to finding a production process that meets your needs and budget. Your costs will be affected by many aspects such as the type of plastic you use, the amount of items being produced and the type of thermoforming that is used to create the product.




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