From custom plastic bottles to gallon plastic jugs, blow mold design is the ultimate way to deliver efficient, cost-effective storage for beverages and other liquids. To carry 10 gallons of liquid around would require three pounds of aluminum, 40 pounds of glass, or eight pounds of steel. Plastic bottle design can do the job with just two pounds of material. All this is due to the advantages of blow mold design.
What is Custom Blow Molding?
A blow molding machine is capable of extruding plastic containers in nearly any shape and size desired. The user need only input the desired blow mold design. A mold is then designed and the machine uses an extruder to extrude, blow, or stretch plastic into or around the mold.
Which is the Best Type of Blow Mold Design?
Older machines were only capable of using the injection method to fill a mold with thermoset rubber. Today, however, thermoplastic elastomers make it possible to extrude a design far more effectively and at lower costs.
Extrusion blow molding is flash-free, allows for sequential construction of materials, and can produce items that are extremely small, very large, or everything in between.
How Does Extrusion Molding Achieve These Advantages?
There are a number of factors that give extrusion molding the advantages it enjoys. These include:
- Short build times Although extrusion blow molds can produce extremely complex designs if necessary, they can still perform their work very well. This is because extrusion molding requires no core ejection, which means it cools quickly.
- Reduced costs Because the extrusion method works quickly and uses less expensive molds, costs can be saved across the board. The extruded blow mold design also allows for designs with thinner walls, saving on weight and materials costs.
- Consistent and precise design Because of the way extrusion blow mold design works and the type of thin walls and intricate designs it can make, high dimensional precision is possible. It is also easy to ensure that weight variations in the products will be very minor, and trimming operations are cut to a minimum.
What Types of Designs Are Available?
The simplest type of extrusion blow mold design is the single layer design. Only one thermoplastic rubber grade is necessary with this design. Multi-layer designs are also possible, and this type of design is especially useful in producing a final product with multiple functions, or where one part of the design must not come into contact with the general environment.
Extrusion blow molding, stretch blow molding, and injection blow molding all have their uses and are all viable choice for making industrial plastic containers. By far the fastest and most cost-effective method, however, is the extrusion.
