Specialty Capabilities

DSM Engineering Plastic Products has the unique capability of casting nylon to custom mill shapes, cast blanks, near net shapes or cast to size finished parts. Using this technology, many designers have reduced the total cost to manufacture engineered components. Custom cast nylon parts often effectively replace machined plastic parts, sand cast metal parts, and multipart metal assemblies.

Custom casting offers a manufacturing alternative that bridges the plastic fabrication methods of machining from stock shapes and injection molding of thermoplastic parts. It is ideal for small and medium quantity production runs of parts too large or too costly to injection mold. Part size and production quantities most often custom cast are found in Figure 28.

Nylatron and Monocast (MC) cast nylons produce tough, strong, resilient and highly wear resistant parts that cost effectively replace bronze, brass, iron, steel and aluminum in many heavy-duty industrial applications.

Custom cast parts are made by a proprietary monomer casting process in which liquid monomer is directly polymerized into nylon polymer in the mold. Parts of virtually unlimited size and thickness, retaining internal soundness can be produced by Custom Casting. Four inch bearings, bottle handling cams, and gear blanks cast over steel cores are also cost-effectively cast to a near net size, saving machining and assembly time and material costs.

To be a candidate for custom casting, a component should have:

• A continuous operating temperature (in use environment) between -40°F to 200°F (-40°C to 93°C)
• Continuous working stress that does not exceed 3,500 psi
• A finished part size between 4 oz. And 800 lbs.
  (equivalent to a 5,600 lb. steel part)
• Sufficient complexity or detail to make machining from a stock shape too costly

DSM Engineering Plastic Products, 2120 Fairmont Ave., PO Box 14235, Reading, PA 19612-4235. Tel: 610-320-6600; Fax: 610-320-6868.