What is Plastic Fabrication?

Plastic fabrication is any process that is used to design, manufacture or assemble plastics or plastic composites. There is a wide range of fabrication methods available, each with its advantages and disadvantages. Certain techniques may be applicable for roofs or panels that will not be utilized for small machine parts. Let's briefly elaborate on a few of the more common fabrication methods.

 

1. Plastic Welding

Involves melting two or more workpieces together. It is effective when handling thermoplastics that are unsuitable for adhesive binding. When two different types of plastic need to be fused, a filler material is used, especially if they have drastically different melting points. 

 

A filler is used to aid the bonding process and improve certain properties of the end products. Plastic welding can be accomplished through contact welding, spinning, high-frequency vibration, and hot gas emissions. 

 

2. Compounding (Blending) Plastic Fabrication

Combining two or more plastics into an amalgam before forming them into a single part. They are made to exact specifications and later formed with a mold, die, or shaping tool. This is done to enhance product performance and improve the processing of difficult materials. 

Plastic granuals ready to be blended

3. Plastic Lamination

Various layers of plastic are held together to create a barrier along the surface of another material. This process is often used to improve durability, styling, and aesthetic quality. Film and resin are the two most common types of lamination. In these processes, heat and pressure are applied to a fabricated film to enable its adhesion to a moving substrate. 

 

4. Plastic Molding

Plastic is heated, melted, and poured to harden around or within a mold. There are several commonly used molding processes that are effective for different products. 

 

• Injection Molding: Molten plastic is injected into a mold and then cooled. This process can be used for the mass production of both large products and small parts. 
• Compression Molding: Plastic powder or pellets are heated and compressed into the desired form. This method can accommodate intricacies in complex designs.
• Rotational Molding: This uses rotational movements to coat the inside area of a mold with heated plastic, resulting in hollow plastic products. It is suitable for making larger complex products with uniform walls such as canoes, buoys, and automotive parts.
• Blow Molding: Tubes of plastic are heated and transferred to the mold, then air is blown in to inflate the tube into the desired shape. It is often used to create containers such as bottles of fuel tanks.

Injection molding is used to manufacture a plethora of parts, from extremely precise machine components, to entire vehicle body panels

5. Plastic Extrusion

Plastic is heated and pushed through a chamber to be formed into a continuous profile such as pipe, tube, film, or window frame. The melted raw plastic is pulled inside a heated barrel and then pushed out from the mold to get the desired shape. This process is preferred because of its high speed, replicability, and sturdiness of the final product.

 

6. Thermoforming

Vacuum and pressure thermoforming both involve heating and stretching plastic sheets over a mold, pressing it in, and then trimming off the excess plastic.

The difference is vacuum thermoforming involves sucking all the air out of the gap between softened plastic and the mold, while pressure thermoforming applies pressure to the top side of the plastic and lets that air push the air out of the gap to create the desired shape. Pressure forming often captures more detail and texture.

Thermoforming is used to create trays for food packaging, shipping small electronic components, machined parts, and medical products

 

7. Die Cutting

Specialized machines and machine tools convert raw material by cutting and forming it into custom shapes and styles. This method emphasizes design and the creative freedom to produce unique parts. It is often used to cut film and thin plastic sheets into finished parts.

 

While there are many plastic fabrication processes, they won’t all be ideal for creating your product. It is important to consider product functionality and ease of manufacturing when choosing a method as some are inefficient for fabricating certain types of plastic. 

 

Other things to keep in mind are the intended proportion of the plastic to non-plastic material, the need for single plastic versus plastic compounds, the role of plastic in your fabrication process, and the dimensions and use of the final product. 

 

Contact Us

For more information or inquiries about plastic fabrication, please contact us at 888-839-0681 or service@fixsupply.com.