Pressure Forming
Recent technological advances in pressure forming at Formed Plastics allows this process to be competitive with injection molding in crucial areas of appearance and cost in intermediate range volumes.

Pressure forming enables designers to specify sharp, crisp outside details without having to pay the ever increasing costs of injection molded tooling. Some features of the pressure forming technique include:

• fine molded-in texture even on vertical walls and around corners
• raised letters, logos, and other decorative features
• sharp corners and details
• undercuts can be accomplished

Vacuum Forming
While vacuum forming does not permit the crisp design details of pressure forming, this technique has its place in applications where sharp outside details are not required. Prototypes and small quantity runs can be made on temporary wood tooling. Large volume runs are produced on multi-cavity cast or fabricated aluminum tools. Deep draw parts are made through the use of exclusive deep draw technology.

Equipment
Formed Plastics' numerous pressure/vacuum forming machines are capable of forming a wide variety of shapes and sizes up to maximum dimensions of 48"x 96". Through micro-processor controls, each stage of the forming process is controlled with great accuracy. The recent development of optical heat sensors allows the actual temperature of the sheet in the forming machine to be measured-resulting in faster cycle times and improved quality. It is no longer guesswork whether the sheet is at the right temperature for forming; the actual temperature is displayed on a digital readout.

Materials
Formed Plastics works with any formable thermoplastic available including ABS, polycarbonate, Noryl™, PVC, styrene, ABS/PVC PVC/Acrylic, polysulfone, and polyethylene.

Secondary Operations/Assembly
Very often the most difficult part of producing a pressure/vacuum formed part is not the forming, but the secondary machining operations, assembly and marking. Formed Plastics is uniquely qualified to handle these post forming operations through its in-house capabilities. Secondary machining operations can be performed on the company's many CNC machines. All painting, marking, and assembly are done in-house.