Structural Plastics Awards: From Vehicle Body Panels to Hand-Held Dispensers

Once again, Canadian talent was prominent in the winner’s circle at the SPI Structural Plastics Division awards. Of the 11 parts to receive awards at the group’s New Product Design Recognition event in early April, three had input from Canadian moldmakers or processors.

The winner in the Agriculture/Lawn & Garden category was a series of exterior panels for Case LLC’s farm combine, molded of polyurethane RIM by GI Plastek of Newburyport, MA. The nickel shell tooling for the panels was made by PPD Molds Division of PPD Group Co. of Waterville, QC.

Another series of large parts nabbed top prize in the Building and Construction category. FGL Precision Works Ltd. (Concord, ON) designed the mold for the winning parts, interlocking wall panels molded of polypropylene. The two-cavity aluminum mold was very challenging because it required long, unconventional cores, deep cavities with zero draft, and numerous ribs.

A portable stretch wrap dispenser molded by Horizon Plastics Ltd. (Cobourg, ON) was the winner in the Materials Handling category, and also got the nod as Best Single Part. Horizon uses the structural web process to mold the tubular part. The part was designed by Adamson Industrial Design Inc. of Toronto.

The 53 parts entered in this year’s competition were made by a variety of processes, including gas-assist injection molding, RIM, co-injection and structural foam.