Injection Mold Future Predicted 40+ Years Ago in classic, “The Graduate”

Occassionally, I’ll post information that is obvious to many of you such as the basic steps in the injection molding process listed after the Youtube clip below. However, the point is to educate those people in your circle of family and friends that don’t truly understand the scope & impact of the tooling industry. Whether it’s stamping dies to form metal parts or molds to shape plastics, it’s a huge industry that North America’s prosperity depends on. In short, we need to keep and create as many jobs as possible in the industry that “makes things”.

One of the most heralded movies of all time, The Graduate (1967), starring a young Dustin Hoffman has a short clip that included one heck of a prediction those in injection molding have been reaping the benefits of for years.

At a party, Mr. Mcguire has a little advice for Benjamin (Hoffman). I’m not sure even Mr. Mcguire could have known his prediction would be more than right.

Usually a prototype will be made and accepted. About five steps in the injection mold process are required using: the clamp, mold & injection unit.
1. Clamping the mold. Basically, this clamp secures and houses the mold while hot liquid/melted plastic is shot in. Also used to hold the mold tightly together while the melted plastic is cooled..

2. Injection of the hot liquid plastic that was melted from it’s orginal shape of little pellets. These pellets are moved into a cylinder and progressively heated up until the pellets are now in liquid form and transferred into the mold cavity (or desired shape).

3. Dwelling phase. In the simplest terms, this step ensures the enitre cavity is completely filled with the molten plastic.

4. Cooling process. While under the required pressure, the hot liquid plastic will begin to cool until it eventually reaches it’s desired shape.

5. The mold is opened up and the part is usually ejected out. If any excess plastic is on the part it’s removed.

Remember, this is a very quick run-down of the process. The amount of engineering, experience and technology is quite advanced.

Joe Brown

Tags: injection mold process, plastics, tooling

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Injection Mold. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.