Plastic Injection Moulding Services
Providing you with plastic injection moulding services for over 30 years, based in Plymouth, but also servicing the UK from the Midlands down to Cornwall.
Plymplastics – Your Local Plastic Injection Moulding Company
Plastic Injection Moulding of thermoplastics is our primary area of expertise, and what our customers approach us for, time and time again. We offer a comprehensive choice of plastic injection moulding services, ranging from project concept and tooling design to prototyping and tooling manufacture. This is the process that enables us to produce bespoke components for you, using our injection moulding machines, in low (as little as a few hundred) or high (hundreds of thousands) volumes. As the name suggests, injection moulding (often referred to as ‘injection molding’ in the United States) involves melting plastic pellets (thermosetting/thermoplastic polymers), which are injected under pressure into a mould cavity, which then cools and is ejected from the mould tool, to produce the final product.
We can process many different thermoplastics in many different grades, which have different properties. These are divided into Engineering and Commodity thermoplastics. Engineering thermoplastics have better mechanical strength and resistance to impact, heat and chemicals than commodity thermoplastics.
What is Overmoulding in Injection Moulding?
This consists of one component that has a base resin, that is then overmoulded with another resin or a different colour. For example, we currently mould a component for a customer that needs to be rigid, but requires the finish to be soft to touch. This means we mould the inner part of the component in Nylon 6 and then place it back into the mould tool to be overmoulded with TPE (Theremoplastic Elastomer), giving it a soft rubbery texture.
We can process many different thermoplastics in many different grades, which have different properties. These are divided into Engineering and Commodity thermoplastics. Engineering thermoplastics have better mechanical strength and resistance to impact, heat and chemicals than commodity thermoplastics.
What are Insert Moulding and Coloured Components?
Insert Moulding: This is an insert (usually metallic) that is slotted into the mould tool before each cycle. The machine carries out its cycle and produces a component with the insert moulded into it. The inserts allow the moulded part to have features, such as internal and external threads, which would be stronger than if these features were moulded.
Coloured Components: We can colour your components with the addition of colourants that are added to the raw material before moulding. We have a range of 200 standard colours and can also colour match to a specific colour. There are many different options available depending on your requirements.
As leading injection moulding specialists, our clients benefit from a flexible, adaptable and truly bespoke service, provided by our experienced, talented, and highly skilled team. Your satisfaction is at the heart of everything we do.
Thermoplastic Grades
Engineering Thermoplastics can be Polyamides PA6, Polycarbonate PC, Polyacetals POM, Polyesters PET and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene ABS. Examples of Commodity Thermoplastics are Polyethelene PE, Polypropelene PP and High Impact Polystyrene HIPS.
Most materials can have the addition of glass fibres, talc and minerals to increase their properties, such as stiffness and dimensional stability. Other attributes can be incorporated into your components including, overmoulding, insert moulding and adding coloured components.
Our Process
We pride ourselves on our level of service and will always put our customers first. We will work with you, from design stage, right through to product delivery to ensure that you get the level of service you deserve. In order to make the process as seamless as possible, we have produced a system to ensure everything flows as smoothly as possible. Take a look at our manufacturing process chart below.
