I'm bored. And hence was wondering...

What does a regular plastic-injected model factory look like? How are the molds done? Are there armed guards in NBC-protection suits? Do aliens visit the place for time-to-time to check on Earth's defences? Does it stink like a softdrink beverage bottling facility? Does it have its own nuclear reactor? Any SAM defenses in the area? Do they have the "real things" parked for use? How's the food? Blah blah blah

Pix are welcome to satisfy my ever curious, inquisitive, but dull mind. Thanks.

Ciao GIBeregovoy,
The answers to your questions are
Yes, no, no, yes, no, Yes, No, no, yes and no, yes, and not bad.


Actually, I have no earthly idea, but it is a very interesting question. The world may never know. I wonder if you take a tour and they give you free samples, like at a beer plant! That would be neat.
Ciao for now
Rob

I worked for a company that made plastic seals for 9 years. If it's anything like that it looks like a barn, there are very few people about (the injection moulding machines are all automatic), it's extremely noisy (dies opening & closing, etc), & stinks of melted plastic. There are some pictures of the old Airfix factory & the machinery in the "50 years of Airfix book" widely available in book shops.

Oh yeah, & the food was crap!

When I was a boiler mechanic, one of our customers was a Vac-u-form company. not a model company, but one that made all these vac-u-formed plastic inserts for packaging. You know those little tray thingys chocolates and cup cakes get packed in. It was a pretty tidy set up. The machines were rather large, doing 4 foot by 8 foot sheets at a time. they would vac-u-form them, then send them to a machine that automaticly cut all the pieces to size, then off to another machine that packed them into the shipping boxes to be shipped to whom ever ordered them.

The big places start out with a Tanker outside and pump in this powder, now I don't know if they got to mix anything with it, but it goes into a machine that gets it real hot, and forms it into what looks like white spaghetti.

They got a whole bunch of these strands that come out of it and goes along, and dips into the water to cool off, then it hit's this other machine that is like a pasta cutter, that cuts them strands into tiny pellets, which is called virgin plastic. These strands runs like paper does at a news paper place on rollers, so there isn't to much stress to pull them apart, but they hit the water shortly after they come out of the machine before they hit the rollers, so they don't get any marks on them I guess.

That virgin plastic either goes into the injection machines to make models or any kind of fine plastic parts, a lot of the parts inside of your big cars is made out of this to.

I've seen some of these places that don't use all that they make, so they put it in big square boxes and sell to the smaller places that can't afford that machine.

This is about the only way I know how to explain it how it looks.

The virgin plastic can make everything crisp and clear, if you have ever bought a big cheap toy truck, or car, and the plastic looks like it has a lot of swirls in the plastic, and it breaks a lot easier.

You can just about bet, it was made out of recycled plastic, which is not near as good as virgin plastic.
I hope this helps a little.
Kerry

The Last place I worked had 10 injection molding machines for making small plastic parts for resale and for use with their sheet metal fabrication to do more of the work in house and get more money..

the machines sit in the back of the factory in 2 lines of 4 and 1 line of 2.... they were aprox 7 feet high and about 16 feet long by 4 feet wide... a stainless steel color except for the pipes.. esp the ones with melted plastic on em..

the molds themselves set in the middle of the machine and were about 3 to 4 feed on a side..

Plastic granuels.. (various colors) came in cardboard boxes that were 42 inchs wide by 42 inchs long by 42 inches high...

the operator shovels the granuels into the feed hopper.. the machine melts it.. injects it into the mold.. then pulls the mold apart and drops the parts down a shoot.. the operator then cuts the parts apart and dumps them in the bin....

if something goes wrong there is a big red button for the operator to push and a phone to call for someone to come fix it..

a very boring repetitive mononotus job...

molds are made by either a in house machine shop or the specs are sent to a machine shop that specilaizes in molds.. they are very very costly if sent out to a third party...

I used to work as a molding operative. We had 26 machines in the one room. Ear protection was a must! As we produce plastic components for medical packaging, components, and tubing, it was very, very clean. We had to wear overalls and hairnets, plus change to cleanroom shoes (D Class). We used high grade plastic pellets (virgin as somebody else calls them) and all excess sprue was sold to other companies. The granuals were all pumped in through pipes from the feed room outside, to minimize particulate. All shots (molded parts) were de-gated (parts cut off sprues) automatically. Some machines had a double molding possibility, and some had robets that placed items inside the molded parts. As it was a medical company, high rates of inspection and control were needed to ensure perfect products. Also mentioned earlier, it was a boring job, labelling and inspection. You would never reach into the pin of products as the static-build could throw you across the room!!
I have also worked in molding (C Class). Same job, just a higher level of hygiene and only your eyes were exposed!
Tooling was all 3rd party made, and very expensive. Biggest problem was internal flash. Flash samples could get a whole batch rejected ... millions of parts dumped for flash that could hardly be seen by the naked eye. The flash wasnt the problem in itself ... more if it came loose or as it is so fine and weak, it could break off and when used, liquids could carry the flash into the blood stream!

errr my curiosity too...

do they have a large spherical tank to store liquefied styrene ???
once I visited a petrochemical plant that manufacture styrene and store them in a very large spherical tanks .... other plan that I visited had them on jacketed cylindrical tank...

just my curiosity.....