You'll want to use ABS or an PC/ABS blend (ex. Cycoloy C2950HF PC/ABS). Don't bother buying a injection machine. You can typically get the tooling made in Asia for around $5000, and the parts would cost around 20 cents apiece in batches of 3000. Just avoid any slide actions which would drive up cost. Once the tooling is paid for you can select other plastic materials. You can also add fibers if need be. Michael
________________________________ From: Mike Mangus <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 11:08 AM Subject: Re: [TANKS] looking to step up to plastic injection Perhaps take a look at the plastics being used for RC cars and helicopters. I don't know what kind it is, but the stuff is incredibly strong with a bit of flexibility and wear resistant. It might be perfect for track links or other high abrasion high stress parts. Mike From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 10:32 PM Subject: [TANKS] looking to step up to plastic injection Some of you who know something about me, know i do work with resin castings and produce sci-fi kits. Recently i have begun to look into stepping things up, taking me from resin kits to styrene kits (or at least some of them), but i am also looking at other things such as tank related parts :) I know i can't do everything (producing useable parts that everyone could use for every tank), but i could start to do some. The plastic injectors i am looking at all have a mold size of about 3" square but might know someone that might be able to do mold blocks up to 6" (still have to talk more to them about some parts). at first i was thinking of using regular styrene , but thought i'd need to add some sleeves into the links to help prevent wear, but then starting looking into some harder materials that i might be able to use (still checking) such as nylon. they would hold up much better than regular styrene, and i don't think they would need any kind of sleeve cast into them but think there is a possible draw-back - not being able to be painted (unless someone out there know's otherwise). another limitation is the amount of material required to make a part, the injectors i am looking at have a limit of 1 oz of material (think that's liquid, not weight), so some parts might be out of the question to make - for now. if the other person would be willing to make some of the bigger parts for me, those i think would be some road wheels and sprocket wheels - oh, while i'm thinking of road wheels, there is a material that is used to make rubber like gaskets that i was thinking of for making the rubber tires for the road wheels, but haven't obtained a sample of it yet to see if it really is closer to rubber, if so, we have rubber tires (again, limited only by size and volume of material needed). the sprockets i thought could be done in nylon as well as i think that would hold up fairly well but still need to work out the hubs to mount them to and the mounting them to the drive shafts (and hope they don't break) the parts would be in 1:6 scale as to the tanks i am thinking of looking into for parts....but would have to do research to see if the track links would be feasible to make and use Tiger (but of course, I have one) Sherman (i have no real knowledge of them so i don't know if one track fits all) Abram (not 100% sure as i don't know if there are any real variants of the tank or just the one, again, i have no knowledge of this tank). Stug as it's still several months away before i can think about getting an injector, i do know i'll be getting one, so i might as well start looking into other subjects that i can do using the injector. I don't want anyone to think that these would be a cheap things to buy as i have been pricing nylon and it's a few dollars a pound for it and the molds could cost me $500 - $1500 on up. now parts such as hatches and such would be made out of styrene, this way they can be easily painted along with the rest of your tank. the nylon parts (if i can get everything worked out) i wanted to see about maybe trying for 4 colors, black, light gray, medium gray and dark gray. i was sort of leaning towards the gray as i thought if they could be painted and the paint were to wear off, the gray could sort of be a bare steel color (or i could look into an orange brown for a rust color if i could get custom colors somehow). oh and the road and idle wheels that i do make, i plan to make them to accept bearings (i think i can get a good supply of them so i could include them with each wheel and also as replacement parts). i would even consider a generic track design if i can get things to all work out, i think some of this could be a big boost for future tank building. Chris-- You are currently subscribed to the "R/C Tank Combat" group. To post a message, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] Visit the group at http://groups.google.com/group/rctankcombat -- You are currently subscribed to the "R/C Tank Combat" group. To post a message, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] Visit the group at http://groups.google.com/group/rctankcombat -- You are currently subscribed to the "R/C Tank Combat" group. To post a message, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] Visit the group at http://groups.google.com/group/rctankcombat
