There was a time not long ago when the idea of all-plastic car would have provoked howls of laughter from car enthusiasts. Plastic? Ha! Everybody knows plastic isn’t as tough as metal, right? Plastic is for toys, food packaging, knick-knacks, what-have-you. Metal, ahh, that was the stuff real cars were made of. So much for…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts
There was a time — a long time ago — where car enthusiasts eschewed anything remotely resembling plastic in their automobiles. It just looked and felt, well, cheap. But that was then… this is now, for plastic injection molding companies who make plastic car parts. There are several reasons why about 20% of the components…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts
Large tonnage injection molding machines (>500 tons) were not much beloved by plastic injection molders for many years. They were just so, well, unwieldy for lack of a better term. Then there were the shipping costs. In a word, they were understandably high because of the sheer weight of the plastic parts which were being…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts , Plastic Injection Molding Equipment
Ah, the marriage of plastic and metal — it’s always a challenge, not the least because of the need to pre-treat the metal part in order for it to bond with the plastic part. But marrying these two materials is almost always necessary at some point in the manufacture of plastic automotive parts and plastic…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts
Bumper covers: you see them every day but probably don’t give them much thought. Made of either plastic or fiberglass, they have two primary jobs: protect the bumper, and by extension, the entire automobile and its occupants. Their second job is simply to give a very utilitarian object (i.e. the bumper) a certain elan, thus…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts
Steel yourself: plastic is becoming increasingly more popular as a material for machine gears. In fact, in some gearing applications, plastic is even superior to metal! Advances in polymers have made this all possible. Industrial designers have a better grasp of their benefits and limitations. Today, plastic gears can be manufactured by hobbing or stamping…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts
The U.S. plastic injection press market is pressing forward in 2016. What’s driving it? Well, automotive is certainly fueling some of the growth— the industry’s robust U.S. sales of 16 million to 18 million vehicles has powered the overall injection molding machinery business, but especially plastic injection molding, which produces everything from interior door panels…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts
Although you hear about Turkey a lot these days, the news is almost always bad: terrorism, civil wars in neighboring countries, migrant crises… the list goes on and on. Overlooked in all this is Turkey’s burgeoning plastic injection molding industry, which is doing quite well, thank you. Exhibit A: plastics processor and mold maker MTN…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts
The U.S. market for plastic injection molding presses slowed down just a bit in 2013 but is far from hitting the brakes. In fact, industry executives see solid growth ahead in 2014 from the plastics-hungry auto industry, and from a steadily rebounding North American manufacturing sector. Approximately 3,500 plastic injection molding machines could be sold…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts
Airbag covers have long been a growing market for plastic injection molders who want to make inroads (pun intended!) into the plastic automotive parts business. However, heretofore, manufacturing these covers resulted in a lot of waste and striations — long blemishes that thankfully were mostly obscured because of the covers’ textured finish. Still, the striations…
Filed Under:Automotive Plastic Injection Molded Parts , Plastic Injection Molding Methods