The Nylon® Family of plastics are all very tough, strong, machine well, and have excellent wear properties. Nylon is a very popular plastic material, and is found in numerous applications. One of the largest usages is the production of household carpeting because of the excellent wear resistance. Nylon frequently replaces materials such as UHMW, PET, Acetal Copolymer – Acetal Homopolymer, and ABS. It will outwear most plastics and is self lubricating.
The wide variety of types and colors is one of the largest in the plastic industry.
Nylon® Type 6/6 Rod, Sheet and Plate
The extruded Nylon 6/6 (Nylon Rod, Nylon Sheets and NylonTubes) material (aka: Polyhexamethylene Adiptimide) is available as Natural (tan – straw), Black, Glass filled (medium tan) and a molybdenum disulphide filled which is very dark gray. The most common size range for the extruded Nylon 6/6 is .125″ – 4.0″ diameter rod, and .125″ – 4.0″ thick sheet. The thicker materials should be cast due to cost and stress issues. For addition details on the Nylon Rod and Sheet 6/6 – see the data sheet.
Nylon Type 6 Cast Polycaprolactam
The cast Nylon type 6 has almost limitless possibilities. Many colors are available in Cast Nylon, the natural color, black, blue, dark gray (normally molybdenum disulphide filled again), green and many more. Sometimes the color is determined by the additive (oil filled) or by industry. Because of its relative ease of manufacture, many companies prefer to get their Nylon in a special color to help ‘brand’ their parts.
Cast Type 6 Polyamide can be made in Nylon rod from about 1.25″ diameter to almost any size. Nylon sheet normally starts at about .75″ thickness, and
Cast Nylon Type 6 Rod – 26″ OD X 8.0″ Thick
once again, can be made to almost any thickness. In addition to standard rod and plate, other sizes and shapes can be cast from Nylon Type 6 – ie. discs, tubes, near net shapes, large profiles, etc. The only limitations are how much money you have, and the size of the truck to get it to you! We have had cast very large blocks (11″ X 11″ X 48″ solid), sheaves up to 66″ OD, large tubes 36″OD X 12″ ID X 14″ long, and many more massive Nylon Cast parts.
Nylon 6/12 -Low Moisture Absorption
The claim to fame for the Nylon Type 6/12 is the low moisture absorption of the material. This grade of Nylon Sheet and Nylon rod is more stable that the type 6 or 6/6, and with the lower water absorption, this resin can handle a wider range of environments. Our manufacturer partners can run this as an Extruded Nylon Rod or Nylon sheet item or as a Cast Nylon Rod item. This opens the door to a wide range of sizes and shapes. This material exhibits most of the same properties of the Nylon 6/6 and Cast Type 6, with some slight improvements in key properties.
Filled Grades of Nylon
Because of the processing of Cast Nylon, many additives can be mixed into the material. The most common are: glass filled, oil filled, Kevlar fiber filled (Hydlar Z) and the molybdenum disulphide (M0S2). In addition, other fills and colorants (pigments) can be added to assist in manufacture or processing.
Common specifications for Nylon are: L-P-410, ASTM D-4066,L-P-395C, Mil-M-20693B Comp A, Ty I, IA, II and III, Mil-M-20693B Comp B, Ty 4, Mil-P-17091B Type 1, and Mil-P-46060, PA0613, ASTM D-5989 S-PA0511, and more.
Before buying your next big chunk of Nylon, contact us for information on the benefits of a filled or near net-shape Cast Nylon part.
Contact us with your specifications, we look forward to assisting you.
Email us with questions or comments, or call us at 866-832-9315
There are hundreds of plastic manufacturers, and even more plastic sheet, rod and tube suppliers.
What makes one better or worse than another? Some of the biggest differences are in the quality of the materials they have in stock. Not all manufacturers are the same. Some produce very inexpensive materials for the disposable trade. A few supply high quality materials from the big names in the plastic industry.
We buy only from American companies. Our suppliers and warehouses are all here, in the USA. While several of our factories have parent companies in Western Europe, they manufacture the bulk of their materials here in the states. With the NAFTA requirements, we are able to provide certification to all our materials.
American Made Quality Makes A Difference
As you probably know, materials made in areas around the world don’t have the same quality control systems that we have here. We have seen materials from suppliers not in the USA or Western Europe, and have chosen to not carry any of these materials – they just don’t measure up to Made In The USA! We believe that that American Made still means something, and it transfers to the materials we supply.
Since 1975 we have partnered with the best manufacturers, with the best industrial, machinable, mechanical and professional grades of plastic materials available in the marketplace. Quality names like: Westlake Plastics, Ensinger Plastics, Gehr Plastics, Roechling Plastics, Polymer Industries, Spartech Plastics, Z/L Plastics, Plaskolite, and many, many more. None of these are suppliers are newcomers, most of our suppliers have been in business producing excellent quality plastic sheet and rod for over 50 years. We are the new guys, as we started in 1975!
Buy From An Establish Plastics Professional
Industrial Plastic Supply of Anaheim California
How can you tell if your plastics are ‘quality’ pieces of plastic? It is a bit tough to tell by just looking, and that is what the low quality suppliers and manufacturers count on. Sometimes the only way to tell is by cutting or machining a part. We have cut into materials that literally break when a saw blade comes into contact. Some materials have stress levels so high they bow significantly as we cut through the material. See article on Stress In Plastics.
These high internal stresses show up during machining as warping, changes in tolerance, large movement in part size and stress fractures. We have seen parts move by over 5% after part was machined and within 12 hours. This picture shows a piece of glass filled nylon from one of the ‘upstarts’ in the industry. As a test, we were cutting some strips. As you can see, the part has such a high stress level that it warped away from the rest of the sheet as we cut it. This is very dangerous for a person cutting or machining, as it can stop a blade or break free and strike an employee. We chose not to buy from this new company.
Plastic Sheet and rods Proudly American Made
We have been around the block a few times, and we know most of the things that will cause you problems in a material. That is why we only buy from the big guys, the high quality material manufacturers, the well known – tried and true manufacturers. We buy from the experts, the professionals, the leaders in our plastics industry. Supplying industrial grade plastics to machine shops may seem like an easy thing. We treat this process with the respect it deserves; your parts are important to you and your customers. We won’t let you down by providing unacceptable grades of plastic materials. Our parts aren’t stressed out!
Call on us today – 866-832-9315 and ask for a Plasticologist, or email us for more information about the quality materials we supply.
You know how bad it is when you get stressed out, with all the day to day challenges and issues? Well, plastics get stressed too.
The process of producing plastics into sheet, rod and tube is a stressful manufacturing process.
Stress free plastic manufacturing
The process to make a plastic sheet, plastic rod or plastic tube requires the plastic resin to be heated to temperatures of 350° – 500º to get the resin to flow through the machines.
The material is then pushed through a die at high pressure.
This heat and pressure cause many stresses to affect the plastic material.
The cooling of the plastic shape is critical
If the plastic cools to quickly, the surface cools and the center is still very hot, this is a major cause of internal stress.
Processed to quickly and voids or cold spots cause poor quality sections.
Processed to slowly and materials burn in the die and visible burn spots appear on the surfaces – bad material
Proper speed provides homogeneous material that has cooled at a uniform rate through the sheet yields a very low stress sheet
The stresses from this production can be very significant and can ruin your parts. One common prevention method is to anneal or stress relieve the raw material prior to machining, and may require stress relieving during machining if large amounts of material are being removed. The stress relieving process is a slow heat and cool process, contact us for details on your material or project.
Here is an example of a highly stressed plastic sheet, it is 1.250″ thick glass filled nylon sheet. The manufacturer sent us this sample to show the ‘quality’ of their material. We attempted to cut off a strip to do some testing, and you can see the results. This material warped so much it stopped our saw! We never did buy anything from this supplier.
Compression Molded Plastic Sheet and Brownies…
Nylon with huge amount of stress, cooled too quickly.
Yes, you read that right, brownies. I still remember the wonderful smell of my Grandma’s house when she was baking her special 2″ thick brownies. The smell was great, but I also remember the critical timing in the oven. She would open the oven and peek in, and close it quickly so as not to let the heat out. Then, when they looked about right she would open the oven and slip a toothpick into the center of the pan and pull it out again slowly. I can remember asking, “Grandma, why do you put in the toothpick into the brownie?”. The answer was, that the outside cooks quicker than the inside, and it takes a while to get the brownies to cook all the way to the center.Then, when they were all cooked, I would have to wait while they cooled. And, sometimes, if I didn’t wait quite long enough, when I would take a bit the center would burn my tongue. Ouch!
The interesting thing is, that plastics are about the same. Most plastics have a very low co-efficient of thermal conductivity (that is sure a mouth-full), which means that heat and cold don’t travel through the plastics well. This means that it takes a while to ‘cook’ the plastic all the way through, and not just the surfaces. And, just like my brownie story, the plastics take a long time to cool. If the outside of the plastic cools much faster than the inside, then large amounts of stress develop.
The process of compression molding of the plastic sheets is ideal for eliminating stress. The sheets cook slowly, so the entire sheet, including the center, is heated to a uniform temperature. The temperature is held at temperature to insure a fully cooked sheet (you can’t use a toothpick here). Then, over several hours, the temperature of the sheet and the entire compression molding press is lowered very s-l-o-w-l-y. This allows the center of the sheet to cool at the same rate as the external surfaces, and this yields a very stress free sheet. The premier manufacturer of this high quality compression molded sheet is Westlake Plastics. We have been a master supplier of the Westlake Plastic materials for over 35 years.
What should you do to eliminate stress?
If you are experiencing problems with your plastic materials, such as twisting, warping, ‘potato chipping’ or any other sign of stress, contact us. It is probably not your fault. There are dozens of manufacturers that produce engineering and mechanical plastic shapes, they are not all the same. During the production of materials, the process should include a secondary annealing step to remove stress from the newly product. By removing all stress from the sheet or rod you are insured of a ‘clean slat’ before you start machining or finishing. We only provide materials from top rated manufacturers, we truly care about the materials you receive from us.
If you have been experiencing problems with the materials you are getting from other suppliers, let us know, we can help eliminate your stress problems. E-mail us or call us at: 866-832-9315
