Injection Molding Success Story
Custom Injection Molding Company Uses Phygen FortiPhy
Specialty Tool Coating for Improved Mold Release and Corrosion
Resistance
Not every company can succeed as a “custom” molder. When
you receive an order, you use the customer's mold and your
injection molding equipment, plastic, and skill to make a
run of perfect parts. If the mold design is a little too “optimistic”
and the scrap bins fill up, it's your problem. That's where
experience and ingenuity pay off. If you can find a way to
improve the performance of your customer's tooling, you do
it, because it increases your productivity and profit.
 J.D.
Products Inc., a custom molding shop in Vadnais Heights, MN,
makes a variety of injection molded products for original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs). J.D. produces a wide range
of parts, from complex air filter housings and pharmaceutical
accessories, to simple items such as plastic cattle tags.
Its expertise and fast service keep J.D. in high demand throughout
the Midwest.
Jim Denney Jr., plant manager,
had a “nightmare” molding job that filled his shop's scrap
bins for two years. A customer's complex mold had release
problems that commercial coatings could not solve. Denney
turned to Phygen for help. Now all plastic used for this job
leaves the plant through the shipping department as finished
parts. The scrap bins are empty. Experience has shown that
FortiPhy™ coatings by Phygen, with unmatched release characteristics,
make “impossible” injection molding jobs not only work, but
work profitably.
J.D. Products had a customer's mold that required several
troublesome runs per year. The mold produces air filter housings
that contain several barbs for attaching vacuum hoses. According
to Denney, “One of these difficult contours, which also contains
a core pin to form a tube, was causing some serious release
problems. When the mold opened to eject the part, areas of
the part would break off inside the mold, even with low-friction
coating on the pins.” Instead of the core pin forming the
tube ID and releasing from the plastic barb, the pin would
stick — pulling out the barb and ruining the part.
Denney explains, “We struggled with this nightmare for two
years. In addition to constant release problems, the best
we could do was 3,000 to 4,000 shots before the coating wore
off the core pins. We needed two or three sets of spare core
pins and several tooling setup cycles just to make one run
of 10,000 parts.” After struggling with commercial coatings,
Denney turned to Phygen for a custom application of FortiPhy™
UltraEndurance™ coating.
The key to the FortiPhy coating's exceptional toughness,
low coefficient of friction, and corrosion resistance, is
its uniform, nanocrystalline structure. Phygen’s patented
plasma acceleration process improves upon traditional PVD
techniques to produce the most uniform coating deposition
layer possible, with exceptionally high adhesion. Having solved
the uniformity problems inherent in the PVD processes of the
past, Phygen can apply thinner coatings that outperform thicker,
less-uniform coatings. In addition, Phygen coatings are applied
at much lower temperatures. Low-temperature processing and
thinner coatings help to keep critical tool dimensions within
tolerance, without the costly rework of other processes.
How did Phygen improve the situation at J.D. Plastics? According
to Denney, “Our release problem is solved and the coatings
are staying on. So far, we have made a couple of large runs
totaling more than 20,000 shots with no scrap parts, and without
changing any core pins.”
J.D.'s productivity gains are a testimony to Phygen's advanced
technology. In addition, Phygen's service will keep us coming
back. Denney reports, “Their technical support was very informative
and their turnaround time was great.” |
