I know little about the industrial design process but I want to make a prototype of a product made of plastic. Is there a place where I could get samples of different types of plastics?
Thanks
Hi Rob,
My advice would be to let someone else (like a mechanical engineer, or manufacturer) help you decide which plastic is most appropriate for your application, and instead concentrate on the form and structural design of your product.
The plastic a product is made from is usually determined by either the cost or mechanical properties of the material, or both. Keep in mind that a lot of plastic products are coated, plated, painted, laminated, or otherwise finished in some way, so it can always look or feel different on the outside.
If you are making a plastic product, it will most likely be injection molded, correct? If so, you will probably want to have a prototyper make you one or two “models” of the final design by machining it from a solid block, or via SLA (Stereolithography).
If you want to research diferent plastics to understand their mechanical properties, check out something like this site: http://66.192.79.234/. Also, you can usually get different plastic suppliers to send you samples of their materials.
If all of this is overkill, and I’ve completely misunderstood, please explain the goal of you project a little more, and I’ll take another shot.
nope, that helped out immensely. thanks.