Helpful Tips

Read some helpful tips that come from our extensive industry experience and product knowledge.

Stricter Regulations on VOC’s Are Coming for Industry

VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) have been regulated for years. One of the strongest regulations comes from CARB. CARB (California Air Resources Board) is a department within the California State EPA charged with helping to reduce pollution and maintaining a healthy air quality in the state. CARB has not only been a driving force on air…

View Story

Cost Per Pound vs Cost Per Purge

Yes, this actually happened, several times. The production manager at a medium-sized injection molding plant was testing different products to eliminate streaking and shorten purge times. His current purging process used 33 pounds of purging compound. The purging process took 3 hours and required over a dozen shots to be reviewed by Quality Assurance before…

View Story

Why Ejector Pins Need Two Lubricants

Proper lubrication of leader pins, slides, gates and ejector pins is a necessity in order for molds to last and perform effectively and efficiently. However, there is a two-pronged solution to maximizing part quality while at the same maximizing the performance of pins. Slide recommends using two different lubricants. One lubricant for the back 80%…

View Story

New Safety Data Sheets & Labeling for Hazardous Chemicals

OSHA deadlines have come and gone. New deadlines are coming. Chances are you haven’t met the deadline for employee training on new Safety Data Sheet and labeling formats. And more changes are coming quickly. A Quick Overview Potentially hazardous chemicals and products need labels and Safety Data Sheets (SDS) to describe the hazards inside the…

View Story

Mechanical vs Chemical Purging

If you found a process that trims seconds off cycle time you adopt it as soon as possible. You know the cost/hour of running a machine, labor cost, resin cost and you see more profit with just 5% shorter cycle times. But when it comes to purging, molders don’t do always use the same math…

View Story

Switching Purge Compounds Saves Molder $79,000 Per Year, Per Machine

Imagine cutting purging costs by $79,000 or more per year, simply by changing to a different process. That’s how much a major Midwestern molder, which manufactures closures at high speeds, found they could save by switching to KLENZ purging compound from Slide Products. For years, the molder used 100 lbs of an inexpensive purging material each time…

View Story

Maintaining Molds Used in Medical Applications

We do not recommend using aerosols in clean rooms.  Aerosols can have product drift, possibly contaminating the production area, or even other molding applications in the same room. Cleaners, releases, rust preventives and lubricants all need to be in non-aerosol delivery systems when used in a clean room. Hand-spray pump bottles and lint-free wipes are…

View Story

Different Strategies for Challenging Purges

Which if the following two scenarios sounds like your molding challenge, costing you more than you may even realize? Scenario 1: You are using nasty, gas emitting resins. Temperature sensitive resins. Maybe flame retardants. Delrin or Acetal. Scenario 2: You have to send a purge squeezing through hot runner manifolds with gates that are less…

View Story

3 Steps to Help Prevent Damage From PVC Out-Gassing

Heating PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride) results in the out-gassing of hydrochloric and hydrobromic acids. These acids can lead to pitting, oxidation, and other problems with a mold, die or other metal machinery in the vicinity. There is a 3-step process that can help protect expensive tools from the damaging effects of out-gassing. Step 1: Use…

View Story

How To Choose & Use the Right Mold Cleaners

Cleaning molds is a key part of running a successful injection molding operation. It starts with choosing the right cleaner for the right cleaning situation: Offline – when the mold is cold (at room temperature) and on the bench, ready to be placed into storage, or Online – when the mold is warm and still in the…

View Story

When Silicone Release Is a Bad Thing . . .

As a molder you want fast cycle times, high productivity and superior quality. If the next step is hot stamping, pad printing, screen-printing, heat transfers or other post-decorating operations, one of your procedures will create quality issues. A quick, clean ejection of plastics parts You know downstream processes are impacted by your molding procedures. When…

View Story

How To Shorten Purge Times & Start Molding More

Purging is a necessary evil for any molders existence. Profits are in the molding, not in the time lost purging. Completely removing the old and unwanted resin from the screw and barrel assembly means greater quality control. Doing it quickly means you are back online faster and molding more. The main reasons for purging are:…

View Story

Ejector Pin Lubrication Procedure

The right steps to ensure maximum productivity without marking parts Lubricating ejector pins is essential to preserve the life of an injection molding tool. The wrong procedure and the wrong lubricant can cause problems and even damage a tool. Problems, such as bleed out onto the tool surface, can cause defective plastic parts. Thermal and…

View Story

How To Protect Your Mold From Machine To Shop

You are done molding, and it is time to get the mold out of the machine and to the shop. This is one of the most vulnerable times for your mold. Remember, during molding you have cool water circulating as part of the temperature control system. As your mold cools, especially in a high-humidity environment,…

View Story

Protecting That Mirror Finish

There are a few levels of mirror finish on injection molds. The finest, and most labor-intensive finish to achieve looks as crisp and flawless as a fine glass mirror. You can truly see your reflection in the finish. This type of finish is needed when the part’s cosmetics critical. So think if items such as…

View Story

Silicone vs. Non-Silicone: How To Choose?

Silicone-based mold releases have been a staple in the molding industry for over 60 years. Sticky parts were the status quo during the infancy of the molding industry, and even as technology has evolved and mold design and mold making materials have improved, mold releases still play a significant roll in improving cycle times and helping…

View Story

Are You Really Protecting Your Mold From Rust?

Ben Franklin is correct. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But Ben needs to add a bit of clarification. You need an ounce of the RIGHT prevention. Nowhere is this more valid than protecting molds and tooling. The fastest way for a molder to go broke is to use improper methods…

View Story

True Story: How a Molder Turned Hours Into Minutes by Changing Purge

A molder of a variety of plastics parts was having significant issues with color changes. Three of their 75 machines were molding small snaps and connectors in a rainbow of colors (green, yellow, clear, brown, white, etc.) with polypropylene. When it was time to change colors and start molding white or clear resin, hours of…

View Story

Aerosol vs. Bulk . . . Which Is the Best Way To Spray?

There are two general methods of packaging any chemical formulation: aerosol and bulk (liquid). While how the product works may be similar, the methods of delivery offer different advantages. Aerosol is the perfect formulation Aerosol products, by their very nature, are designed to be portable. They can be easily transferred from one workstation to another….

View Story

Creating a Mold-Repair Plan: The Mold Layout Sheet

Article courtesy of ToolingDocs, LLC Regardless of mold type, the goal of the maintenance shop is always the same: Get a mold production-ready after it has been removed from service. Given today’s lean manufacturing climate, the objective can no longer be only getting a mold ready. To stay competitive, mold maintenance needs to be more effective and performed…

View Story

Every Aerosol Maker Has To Follow a New Government Flammability Rule

Just so you know, action heroes really can’t make a torch using any aerosol can and a lighter. That’s just Hollywood. Nothing in the formulation changed. It’s the same aerosol you’ve been using for years. But now the government has found a different way to define “flammability.” Previously, an aerosol formulation was tested using the…

View Story

Preparing Your Mold for the Rack

The production run is done and now the mold won’t be used any time in the near future. Time to prepare it for the rack. As the mold is cooling, apply rust preventive to the mold cavity, the plates and mold base to help prevent condensation from causing rust and oxidation. This is a “dirty”…

View Story

What You Need To Know About the SDS & Label Makeover

OSHA regulations have changed and it is impacting product labeling and Safety Data Sheets. There are two deadlines of which you need to be aware. June 1, 2015 In May 2012, the US Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) updated the current Hazard Communication Standard (HCS 1994) to align with the Global Harmonization System (GHS)…

View Story

Do You Know Where That Rag Has Been?

Cleaning molds falls neatly into two categories: Offline and Online. From there the decisions start to vary depending on your needs, the mold, time and your Preventive Maintenance procedures. Heat can help or hurt the process Various cleaning solvents have different characteristics and work differently at different temperatures. For example, some solvents work well when…

View Story

How To Be Ready for a OSHA Inspection

By Dave Malter, President, Malter Associates, Inc. OSHA compliance is something that is expected from everyone every day. Will you and your workplace be ready when the inspector comes to your door? Let’s explore three key issues of OSHA inspections: 1) Why? Reasons why an OSHA inspection could occur at your facility. 2) What? Programs…

View Story

Stopping Unscheduled Mold Stops

By Steve Johnson, ToolingDocs The ultimate goal of every molding company is to produce quality parts on time. To this end, the daily workload of most shops consists of doing whatever it takes to satisfy production demands and, when times are slow, few companies use the downtime to “get ahead” in the tool room. Instead…

View Story

Squeeze Every Second of Production Out of Your Mold

There’s a routine you can change to help squeeze more production time out of your mold. Change your rust preventive. Check out the new rust preventive from Slide Products. New Quick Rust Preventive is a dry rust preventive that allows for fast, clean startups when the mold is put into production. Slide’s new Quick Rust Preventive (Quick…

View Story

The Slide Difference

Question: When does an aerosol product offer you and your company benefits beyond the ordinary? Answer: When that product: is backed by more than 50 years of industry specific experience; is personally supported by more than 200 local and stocking distributors, including our Platinunum Distributor – Plastixs LLC comes with an unparalleled level of customer service and technical support;…

View Story

Add Arms Without Adding Bodies with the Freedom Automatic Spray System

Introducing a simple, labor-reducing, hands-free spraying system that minimizes downtime, reduces manufacturing costs, boosts productivity and controls consumption of processing chemicals. Extremely simple to program, Slide’s Freedom automatic spray system is autonomous, working easily on its own. Just plug and spray. Why Freedom? Spraying by hand is inconsistent and wasteful. Automating the application of mold releases…

View Story

Corrosion Control: Your Guide to the Best Mold Care

A study done in 2002 by CC Technologies Labs, Inc. showed U.S. Industry spent $276 billion a year in costs related to, or caused from, corrosion. In the plastic’s industry, these costs are not limited to mold damage and repair. Corrosion also causes the breakdown/shutdown of a press, leading to manufacturing down time and significant…

View Story

Case Study: 24-hour Purge Process Slashed to Just Minutes

A maker of twist-off bottle caps spent 16–24 hours purging to accomplish a color change. Requiring multiple purges with a witch’s brew of several different types of material, equipment was shut down for 2-3 shifts. Desperate for a solution that would re-capture lost production, they contacted their local Slide representative in Mexico City for on-site…

View Story