Re: New fender strakes
Originally Posted by JHM2K
What material is their mold made of? I have quite a bit of experience around plastics through working at Nissan over the years... typically, TPE (Thermo Plastic Elastomer) plastics work best for injection molding. ABS is very brittle and non-compliant once set. TPE can be soft, stretchy, and flexible, or hard and rigid depending on the mixture of crystalline and amorphous polymers used.
Here are some other tidbits...
Comparison Table for Plastics.
TPE? Thats OK for soft, flexible and semi flexible parts but side strakes ..... no.
I designed plastic molds for 35 years or so and still do once in a while.
ABS is a bit over the top for an OEM part ($$$$) but OK here even if a little awkward to mold.
An aluminum mold is cheap and fine for a short run part like this. It has just got to be thick enough to take the injection pressure.
What kind of manufacturing process where you talking about?
Three molds broken in less than three days? Hmmmm. how can you make molds that fast?
Now fiber glass? It needs a different kind of mold and the parts need to be trimmed.
What's up with this scene? 
I hope your name is not Dan.
Last edited by onehundred80; Sep 19, 2010 at 03:30 PM.