In the US and UK, the concept of plastic injection molding emerged when the experts were performing experiments with different types of plastic. In the beginning, the work was done manually. In other words, Parkesin was used to press plastic into molds. However, the plastic was quite brittle and caught fire quickly. Plastic injection molding was invented by John Wesley. However, it has a history of a lot of brilliant minds.
His full name is John Wesley Hyatt, and he was the one who came up with the process of what we call celluloid plastics. He started his career in this field when he made a number of mixtures for different objects, such as checkers. His broth Isaiah was also part of the project.
He experimented with a lot of mixtures. In an experiment, John created a mixture of alcohol, camphor and nitrocellulose and put the solution in a steel mold. Next, they heated up the mold and let it cool down. After a while, the material was taken out of the mould. John was amazed to see that it was a brilliant billiard ball. So, this is how the process began.
The two brothers got a patent for this process in 1870. They made dentures from the same set of three materials that reduced the demand for rubber dentures. This was the beginning of the use of celluloid plastics.
Nowadays, a lot of things are made from celluloid plastics, such as utensils, toothbrushes, and screwdriver handles, to name a few. In Hollywood, it’s a common use for production of films.
Another era of plastic injection molding began when Leo Hendrick experimented with polymers. At the end of these experiments, he was able to invent Velox for Kodak Eastman. Basically, Velox is a type of photographic paper. It didn’t require sunlight for development. Instead, all it required was gaslight.
The inventor was a chemist and brought a revolution in this field. Aside from this, he also investigated to find out the way polymers had a molecular structure. As a result of these investigations, he invented a lot of things and made a lot of discoveries.
Two popular inventors Ziegler and Eckert introduced the plastic molding machine in 1926. It was the very first operational machine in the field of plastic manufacturing. And this lead to a successful production line.
Apart from these, many other big names improved the process. As a result, the process has become much more efficient as far as making today’s appliances is concerned, such as plaques, signs and name plates, just to name a few.
Today, the plastic injection molding is controlled with the help of computers. Plastic pellets are inserted into metal molds in order to make different types of plastic parts. As a matter of fact, we can’t even count the number of products that the process can make. This is the reason we can make hundreds of thousands of parts per minute in an efficient manner.
Long story short, this was a brief history of plastic injection molding. Hope you will find it interesting.