Molding
Structural Foam Molding
FM Corporation originally began as a custom structural foam molder providing parts for the furniture, tool, and computer industries. Throughout the years, we have grown to be one of the premier structural foam molders in the country. We now serve medical, scientific, telecom, industrial, and defense industries; to name a few. Whether it’s a few ounces or 75lbs, we can accommodate your structural foam needs.
The structural foam process is a form of injection molding that offers an affordable way to gain high strength and rigidity as a structural molded part. Once the part is molded, a cross-sectional view of the part would show a microcellular “porous” center that is sandwiched between two solid layers of base resin. When creating a structural foam part, we introduce a blowing agent additive - much like colorant or any other additive - during the molding process and that is what helps create the microcellular structure within every single part. This blowing agent not only reduces some of the weight of the resin, it also allows us to mold parts with significantly less pressure than typical injection molding, thus allowing us to use Aluminum tooling.
Our Sales and Engineering Team can help decide if structural foam is a great option for your application, and could even guide your design team toward improved design options to ensure both a high quality part for you, and ease of manufacturing for us. Anyone looking to replace a heavy metal casting, an expensive and complicated sheet metal part, or to consolidate many injection molded parts into one… structural foam is the process for you!
High Pressure Injection Molding
What started as a complement to our structural foam business, has since grown to a stand-alone entity of it’s own. With high-pressure injection molding machines ranging from 90 to to 1450 ton, we have the ability to mold a wide array of different sized parts. In addition, we have experience in commodity grade resins (HDPE or PP), engineering grade resins (Nylon, PBT, Noryl), and anything in between.
Whether you have low or high volume runs, simple to difficult parts, or maybe even problems with your current supplier, you can call on FM Corporation to help solve your problems.
Machine Capabilities
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300 Tons - 50 lb shot size
400 tons - 35 lb shot size
500 tons - 75lb shot size
*All shot weights assuming Polystyrene resin
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90 tons - 0.3 lb shot size
270 tons - 1.02 lb shot size
310 tons - 3.4 lb shot size
390 tons - 3.75 lb shot size
440 tons - 6.5 lb shot size
450 tons - 4.75 lb shot size
610 tons - 4.3 lb shot size
750 tons - 8.125 lb shot size
950 tons - 9.2 lb shot size
1450 tons - 13.75 lb shot size
*All shot weights assuming Polystyrene resin
Secondary Operations
Structural foam parts tend to have longer cycle times, which allows us the ability to perform secondary operations at the press during cycle; optimizing both your time and money per part. Some of those secondary operations include: drilling, ultrasonic welding, and insert installation. When it comes to insert installation, we install millions of different inserts each year (press fit, ultrasonic, and thermally installed inserts) and can offer that knowledge and experience to your design team during new product development.
Ultrasonic Inserting
Thermal Inserting
Precision Inspecting
With our Coordinate Measuring Machines from Zeiss and Brown & Sharp, we are able to perform precision inspections on nearly any sized part ranging from the size of a penny, all the way up to a six-foot tall cabinetry door. Our CMM utilizes a touch probe measurement technique and has the ability to measure parts 59” x 196” x 39” tall.
In-House Tool Repair
Plastic happens… and when it does, our in-house mold repair team is there to quickly fix any issues that arise during production. Whether it’s replacing busted waterlines, fixing broken pins, rebuilding parting lines or simply polishing molds, our mold repair technicians are there to get your molds back up and running without losing any time by outsourcing the fixes to a repair shop.
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