Do you know of any manufacturers who will actually produce parts in this
price range ? I have a design for a 4” wide, 1 ¼” long track link. It should
be a straight pull. Even in the least expensive ABS plastic, the place I’ve
received quotes from is several times more than the $0.20 you mention for
batches of 5000.
Thanks,
Doug
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Michael Blattau
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2012 9:30 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [TANKS] looking to step up to plastic injection
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
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