Vitrimers May Replace Plastics As We Know Them
A truly revolutionary new class of material successfully combines the best attributes of thermoforming and thermosetting plastic. This could change the way we make rubber ducks, jumbo planes and everything in between. It might also greatly effect and improve our impact on the environment. What Are The Most Common Plastics? Polymers, generically called plastic, used […]
Inventor’s Toolkit: 7 Tips For Inventing Products
Every day we talk to inventors, entrepreneurs and product designers who need help making a physical prototype. For these people to be successful inventors, they need to be armed with knowledge to avoid the many pitfalls they may face in the development process. Here are 7 tips to help make the journey easier. 1. Research […]
Getting a Beautiful Finish on Painted Parts
The process of painting beautiful parts There are some unique challenges that present themselves when trying to achieve the perfect paint finish for prototypes or low-volume production. High volume batch production can be automated to produce large runs of identical parts, but small batches must be carefully handled on a case-by-case basis. Let’s take a closer look […]
The Engineer’s Bookshelf: Machinery’s Handbook
Although it’s now digitized on CD-ROM, Machinery’s Handbook still remains The Book to turn to for a vast amount of information relevant not only to machinists but also product designers, tool makers, engineers, inventors and hobbyists who want definitive information about how things are made with machine tools. Let’s take a closer look at its […]
3D Printing Makes the Lightest Materials on Earth
Boeing Corporation released a video recently announcing the development of a new metallic material, considered to be the lightest ever created. And depending on who you ask, it probably is. But over the last several years there’s been a lot of talk about which is the lightest – we keep pushing the boundaries of material […]
AddSub: The Ideal 3D Metal Printing Solution
There’s been a lot of talk zooming around lately about the wonders of additive manufacturing and 3D metal printing, but along with that a lot of misunderstandings about the benefits of this technology for product designers, tooling engineers and prototype makers. We want to take a moment here to clarify some of the confusion and […]
