Repurposing of Obsolete Injection Molds Breathes Life into New Plastic Parts and Our Ailing U.S. Economy
The employees at Blackwell Plastics share a passion for helping people build innovative products and take great pride in sharing in the success of our customer's projects. Founded in Houston Texas in 1939, Blackwell Plastics has accumulated over 2,000 custom plastic injection molds over the seven decades of molding plastic parts. These plastic injection molds produced a wide variety of consumer, medical and industrial plastic molded parts. As new plastic products are developed and companies have moved forward these molded plastic parts have been made obsolete. However, many of these injection molds can be quickly and efficiently repurposed for use in new products substantially reducing the initial capital cost of tooling and time it takes to bring new products to market. According to Jeff Applegate, President of Blackwell Plastics these molds cover a wide range of sizes that can accommodate very small parts to large parts with deep draws and long strokes. In many cases we can use the existing base and simply insert new cores, cavities and ejector pins and we are back in business. During this tough economy we have reached into our past to help our customers find creative and cost effective ways to develop new molded plastic parts. In most cases Blackwell Plastics will retain ownership of the mold base and sell only the inserts that create the plastic parts and labor modify the mold. This also keeps the cost low for customers to get into business. There are many low volume products that continue to be machined due to the up front capital cost of a new injection mold. This repurposing strategy is particularly effective for these lower volume parts and can pave the way for lower part costs and higher margins for our customers. Not all molds will be able to be salvaged and many will end up in the recycle bin, but according to Dane Kinchen, Project Engineer, there are hundreds of injection molds that with a little clean up and modification will get a new start to help breathe life into a new plastic component and hopefully this struggling U.S. economy. For assistance with your new project you can reach Blackwell Plastics at 713 643-6577. www.blackwellplastics.com
