Material Selection

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MATERIAL SELECTION Material selection is aided by answering a few key questions about your product, so you can begin to narrow down your options. What will the product be used for? Is it going to get banged around, or is it mostly for a cosmetic application? How the part will be used makes a big difference in the resin you will need. You wouldn’t want to select polystyrene for a hammer and you don’t want a glass-filled polycarbonate nameplate. Is i

As you’re designing new parts, there are a variety of different factors that you’ll need to consider to prepare for production. One of the most important decisions you’ll make during product development is what kind of material you’ll use for your part. This isn’t always a simple choice; there are a lot of different factors at play that can influence your decision. Here are a few of the key considerations related to material selection that can help you make the right material

When it comes to your plastic parts, you hear a lot about the importance of material selection. And, while it can seem confusing at first, the truth is proper material selection can make a BIG difference for your products. Here’s why. DIFFERENT MATERIALS, DIFFERENT COSTS Now you might be thinking surely there are plenty of materials that could work for my products. And to a certain extent, that's true. But the whole point of material selection is to find the BEST material to

CARBON FIBER REINFORCED COMPOSITE APPLICATIONS Carbon fiber has long been a popular choice for manufacturing components that are set to undergo extreme environmental stress. Aerospace and Defense products in particular have taken advantage of the composite’s high strength-to-weight ratio for decades. But the material’s relatively high production cost had historically served mostly as a barrier for other industries such as Automotive and Sporting Goods. We’re happy to report

KASO engineers were recently challenged with finding a new material solution for Werner Paddles—makers of some of the world’s finest kayak, canoe and stand-up paddles—ultimately finding their solution in a very unlikely place: carbon fiber reclaimed from manufacturing scrap from Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner airplane production. The search for a material that was both tough and attractive enough to meet the needs of Werner’s premium paddles led KASO to RTP Company, a global compoun

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic is a material that's been used for products that experience extreme environmental stress (like those conditions found in Aerospace and high-performance Automotive uses) for years, but new applications for the incredibly strong and durable material are being discovered for other industries as well, for products as wide-ranging as sports equipment and high-tech audio. Earlier this year, KASO Plastics teamed up with custom compounder RTP Company i

KASO Plastics engineers and custom compounder RTP Company teamed up recently to assist Werner Paddles when the company began to experience aesthetic issues with its kayak paddle blades. After experimenting with more than a dozen different materials, KASO engineering staff found that it was a recycled aircraft grade carbon fiber from RTP Company that did the trick. Not only did the material selection process create an aesthetically pleasing look for the Werner blades, but it a