Endless Possibilities Come with Custom Designs
Often a sealing need can be solved with an off-the-shelf solution, but sometimes your project will call for a more specialized design. In these circumstances, only custom designed and custom molded parts will do. When seeking detailed, specific solutions to difficult or unusual application requirements, using custom molded products is the only answer for your engineering need.
With high-quality custom molded parts, you’ll get a product that will last longer and will keep its associated components running longer. You’ll also get the option to choose the exact shape perfect for the job, as well as different material or additive decisions that could further enhance the performance of the part or product.
Let’s go over some of the tangible benefits working with custom molded parts offers manufacturers, and then examine some of the many options you’ll have when working with either custom rubber or custom plastic molded products.
4 Benefits of Custom Molded Parts
Custom molded products provide seemingly contradictory benefits when viewed side by side. Due to how they’re designed, these parts not only offer great flexibility but also result in greater accuracy in the finished parts. And despite the wide assortment of material options available — think of the variety in elastomers and plastics that can be implemented — you’ll still enjoy financial benefits. Here’s a closer look at four of the primary reasons for using custom molded parts.
Possibilities
With an incredibly large and diverse range of design, material, color, and additive options, nearly any kind of part can be fabricated with the custom injection molding process. Color — and some material types — can be swapped easily in plastic injection molding machines in particular, and once formed a custom mold can produce many variations of the same part or product. From mechanical components to medical devices, molds can be used to manufacture parts for use in any industry. By employing custom molding, the scope of what is possible is often only limited by your vision and imagination.
Accuracy
Designing and using a custom molded part means you’ll be able to improve the consistency of the product due to lower potential errors as well. Molds allow the finished product to be extremely precise. No matter how intricate the part, by working with a custom-designed mold for rubber or plastic production, you’ll ensure the most accurate, repeatable form for production. Instead of trying to find an off-the-shelf solution with preset diameters, thickness, and other parameters, you’ll get exacting details — and accuracy with those details — with custom molding. With more aspects of the custom molding process now being automated, the risk of variation will drop even further.
Financial
Injection molding is one of the most efficient processes for producing machined plastic parts, which means more precision parts can be produced over the same time frame versus other methods. Molding machines often use a self-gating tool to streamline operations and keep production rolling smoothly.
Custom molds eliminate guesswork from the production process and can create more products in less time — all of which adds up to tangible financial benefits for the manufacturer. Also, custom molding makes full use of whatever material is used (to fill a mold), which results in less waste and enables supplies of core materials to last longer.
Material Options
Many elastomers and plastics can be utilized in the production of custom molded parts, and mold designs take into account the material you’re planning to use for the end product. The mold is designed, in part, to maximize the characteristics of the chosen material while manufacturing the part or product — which adds value to the end product.
Material selection is a critical step in the manufacturing process, and custom molding will allow you to consider most options to adhere to regulatory requirements while giving you more potential solutions to address appearance characteristics like color and finish.
Custom Rubber Molding
There are various molding methods for processing custom molded rubber parts including injection molding, compression molding, and transfer molding. The variety in molding methods allows for a wide array of custom-designed parts including (but not limited to):
- Grommets
- Bumpers
- Bushings
- Stoppers
- Tips
- Caps
- Bellows
Due to the specialized nature of many of those products, custom designs are necessary to carry out the responsibilities of that part in their associated applications. Your custom molded parts provider should be able to address these tasks, and more.
Custom Size? Custom Material? Both?
At Marco Rubber & Plastics, we’re dedicated to offering a wide range of custom molded rubber products — in any rubber material, durometer, and color available. With a commitment to standard sealing solutions and custom rubber molding options, we’ll give you the flexibility and versatility to tackle any challenge.
When standard sizes are not suitable for your application, our custom molded capabilities will provide the ability to use any of our current compounds in your specific design — no matter the size or shape. Similarly, we can work to customize a material to use in both your standard and custom designs thanks to our extensive experience and expertise in this area.
Custom Plastics Products
Injection plastic molding offers efficiency, quick turnaround and set up times, and low variation among the parts produced. With nearly infinite customization options in terms of shape, material, and additives, the process is capable — with the right direction and guidance — of meeting any design challenge presented.
With our diversified production network, Marco Rubber & Plastics is connected with ISO 9001:2015 certified manufacturers of custom plastic components to provide cost-effective, injection-molded answers to meet and exceed the needs and standards of our customers. Using an injection molding process, our custom plastic parts providers can keep the raw materials stable and in a fluid state before the pressure and/or heat is applied for final curing. Excessive flash and final processing are minimized due to tool design, making this method efficient and the most cost-effective.
Any quality custom molded plastics parts provider will offer substantial options in both the core material selected and additives used to imbue additional characteristics. Marco Rubber & Plastics, for instance, can provide the use of materials ranging from low-density or high-density polyethylene to nylon and acetal (Delrin) to polycarbonate.
Plastic’s versatility is further illustrated with additives, including (but not limited to):
- Fillers (metal, talc, glass, etc.)
- Colorants
- Stabilizers
- Antioxidants
- Flame Retardants
- Ultraviolet (UV) Light Absorbers
- Antistatic Agents
- Lubricants
- Reinforcements (Carbon fiber, Fiberglass, Kevlar)
Due to the options available, you should always talk to qualified engineers and experts to guide you through the process of determining the best combination of variables to fulfill your specific application needs.
Customize Your Production with Marco Rubber
Since 1980, Marco Rubber & Plastics has provided engineer-assisted custom solutions for customers. Our experience in collaborating with those with demanding applications — whether it includes high temperatures, harsh chemicals and solvents, high pressures, intricate shapes, or needed characteristics — has given us the expertise to help you find or formulate the ideal solution with custom molded parts.
If you need a custom molded product design, or custom material formulation, to improve performance in a specific application to separate yourself from the competition, connect with Marco Rubber & Plastics. We’ll use our responsive customer service and application engineers to provide custom molded parts that often cost less than our competitors’ standards.
Seal Your Success with Custom Molded Parts from Marco Rubber & Plastics
Speak to an Expert | Buy O-Rings Online | Request a Custom Quote