Believe it or not, sales of bottled water is set to overtake sales of carbonated soft drinks by late this year, or early next year, industry observers say. This despite the fact that bottled water is about as “un-green” as you can get.Why, you ask? Oh, don’t get us started… but OK, let’s get started:…
Filed Under:Plastic food packaging
Manufacturing is all about reducing complexity. After all, if you can remove a step from the process, wouldn’t that save time and (of course) money? The big question is, (also, of course)”how”? Enter “in-mold labeling,” which is the process of applying labels to plastic-injection molded products like containers or bottles during the manufacturing process. In-mold labeling,…
Filed Under:Plastic Injection Molding Methods , Uncategorized
Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, cars were made out of three materials: metal, metal and more metal. OK, that’s something of a hyperbole but not much — automobiles of the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s were renowned for their lavish use of sheet metal — “acres and acres” of it, as…
Filed Under:Uncategorized
They are the perfect employee: fast, productive and salary-free. And they never need to take a break (unless they break!) Of course, we’re talking robots. And, while they aren’t new to plastic injection molding, they’re certainly getting more and more ink. For good reason. But first, a little robotic history… Cartesian or linear robots, sometimes…
Filed Under:Plastic Injection Molding Equipment , Uncategorized
Melt Temperature. Of all the hundreds of processing variables to control in injection molding, the temperature of the plastic, especially its melt temperature, is paramount, no doubt. After all, temperature control is critical, and you should duplicate the plastic melt temperature as much as possible, from one run to another. But molders forget about barrel…
Filed Under:Plastic Injection Molding Equipment
Smaller… Lighter…Faster: Such is the mantra for many plastic injection molders these days, especially in the area of “thin wall” parts-manufacturing. “Thin-wall” in relation to portable electronics parts are those with a wall thickness less than 1 millimeter. For larger automotive parts, “thin” may mean 2 mm. Whatever the specification, thinner walls call for modifications…
Filed Under:Plastic Injection Molding Methods
It’s simple, really: the primary purpose of feed rate control in regard to plastic injection molding is to achieve consistently accurate proportions of recipe components (resin and required additives) prior to pelletization (in compounding) or end-product manufacturing. Enter feeders: feeders produce a precise and controllable discharge rate for the material they are designed to work…
Filed Under:Plastic Injection Molding Equipment , Uncategorized
The internet has greatly sped up the pace of business, and the plastic injection molding industry is no exception. For example, it wasn’t that long ago when it took designers weeks or even months to obtain a quote for a custom plastic injection molding job. These days, the quotation processing time has been reduced to…
Filed Under:Plastic Injection Molding for Small Parts
Plastic packaging for food and beverage products comes in all shapes, sizes and colors. But which standard plastic parts-forming process — blow-molding or plastic injection molding — is the right one for your product? The answer is, of course, “it depends”. On what, you ask? On a multitude of variables that include (but are not…
Filed Under:Plastic Injection Molding Methods
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