Some plastic questions

[Orange Pedeanaut]

Hey all, I bought this pile of plastic from a machine shop going out of business... Not sure what it all is, any ideas? Some says UHMW and some other codes I dont know. Any help is appreciated, I have about 150 pounds of plastics here. Nick

 

[DEVASTATOR]

Really hard to tell from pics. One piece looks like rulon (the maroon colored piece that looks like a big upper shock mount), some looks like it could be delrin (some of the black pieces). The rest looks to be various grades of nylon.

Rulon is not a good material for rc purposes. It's mainly used as a valve component and typically is soft, very easy to cut. Now the nylon and delrin (if that's what the black material is) would be good for rc parts.

 

[Locoboy5150]

As a side note, Delrin is Dupont's trademarked name for a type of plastic that is generically known as acetal. It is not the same as UHMW. There is some information on UHMW here:

http://www.lehighvalleyplastics.com/uhmw.htm

 

[Orange Pedeanaut]

Cool, thanks guys. Now I gotta see if I can get my money back out of it, there is about a grand worth here according to the machine shop owner...

 

[Phil G]

Plastics can be hard to identify. I had a job at a plastics company a while back that did a lot of vacuum form ABS stuff. Lexan, etc. Too bad I had to quit because I was going to try to sneak in some Mutant bodies...



I remember from Engineering school that there are "Burn tests" that you can do to help identify plastics by how they burn and how they smell and so on but that was a loooong time ago.

Thermoplastics can be identified by heating them up and melting them. If they're thermoplastic they get soft. If not they just burn.

BTW a cardboard cookie goes to the first member that can name the first plastic ever made.

 

[Locoboy5150]

BTW a cardboard cookie goes to the first member that can name the first plastic ever made.

Bakelite, the same plastic that was used for Lionel electric train transformers. It was commonly used in the 1940s and 1950s for all sorts of items like radio casings.

 

[DEVASTATOR]

Nick, how are you planning to recoup your investment? Are you planning to just sell it off?

 

[Orange Pedeanaut]

Ill probably sell most of it yeah, but I may keep a little bit for personal use... I definately have alot of stuff here lol... Nick

 

[Swats]

UHMW is ultra high melicular weight urethane. The company i work for uses it for pads on lift assist devices to protect parts that we are picking up from damage. Another common application is plastic cutting boards. Delrin is similar, but is harder plastic.

 

[Trx Stamp]

Rulon is not a good material for rc purposes. It's mainly used as a valve component and typically is soft, very easy to cut.

Rulon is used for slipper pegs.

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXJK92&P=ML

I don't know about other uses though.

Trx Stamp

 

[Electrohacker]

how about machining us up some bruiser replacement gears or some other cool part.

I could use a motor mount for my bruiser 540 motor conversion... hurry before I make one out of scrap aluminum