Home >> Hobbies >> Other Hobbies

How to Mold Polycarbonate Tubes

Polycarbonate is a common plastic often used for water bottles. Manufacturing techniques include injection molding as well as blow forming, which is common with hollow forms of any shape, and vacuum forming, which is a similar process. A water bottle is essentially a tube with a closed end. Elongated tubes are manufactured in the same way, and the ends are sheared.

Things You'll Need

Injection molding machine
Machine die making tools
Polycarbonate

Instructions

- 1
  Design and fabricate a plug or blank that will be used to cast a tube die. The plug can be made of any castable material. Usually hard materials that hold details work well, such as two-part resins. If the tube you want to create has few or no other details, you may be able to bypass this step and go straight to fabricating a die.
- 2
  Cast a die from your plug, or fabricate a die to the tube's specification. Fabrication can be done with a CNC mill and tool steel. The die's inside diameter will be the exact inverse of the tube's exterior dimensions.
- 3
  Machine injection ports into the die for liquid polycarbonate to flow as well as compressed air.
- 4
  Fasten your die to the injection molding machine, which, when run, will inject liquid polycarbonate into the base of the mold, then either press air against heated polycarbonate, pressing it to the inside of the die like a bubble of chewing gum, or vacuum is created, pulling the polycarbonate into the mold where it will cool.
- 5
  Separate the die and remove the tube.
- 6
  Trim one or both ends of the polycarbonate tube.

Other Hobbies