| A start-to-finish
plastic manufacturing company located in Kulpsville,
Pennsylvania, Aline Components offers comprehensive
molding, machining, decorating, and packaging services
to deliver complete plastic products ready for assembly,
installation, or distribution. At Aline Components,
drilling is easily the most common of our in-house plastic
machining processes and involves the creation of holes
that are right circular cylinders into custom plastic
parts or components.
Finding the Right
Drill Bit
To drill a satisfactory hole in any thermoplastic
material, the correct type of drill bit must be used;
additionally it must be used correctly and be sharpened
appropriately. Aline's basic strategy in drilling into
any plastic is to use the right bit at a slow speed
to minimize heat. Not only are plastics soft enough
to be drilled with dull bits, most manufacturers prefer
to use dull bits to sharp bits. Sharp drill bits tend
to create tiny splits in the plastic when it breaks
through the bottom surface.
Before use, many of our bits are slightly
blunted. When drilling plastics with conventional, high-speed,
blunted twist bits, we utilize slower speeds of 500-1,000
rpm for the best results. With years of experience in
plastic injection molding and manufacturing, our machinists
know that if the bit creates shaving than they are drilling
at the correct speed, but, if it's gumming up, than
they know to let it cool down and go even slower. Our
knowledge in the industry helps us rise above the competition.
How Aline Prevents
Chipping, Cracking, and Clogging in Plastic Drilling
When drilling a hole three times deeper then the diameter
of the drill, we use a lubricant or coolant such as
water. This helps remove chips, dissipate heat, and
improve the finished hole. When drilling plastic we
never stop the bit while it's in the hole. Instead,
we always back the bit out of hole to prevent melted
chips from fusing to the workpiece.
Rough, irregular, or fuzzy holes can cause
cracking and breaking well after the piece has been
completed. We take pride in providing our customers
with custom plastic parts or components that last and,
for this reason, utilize different strategies to prevent
cracking. Two of these strategies consist of making
sure that the holes are in as far from the edge as possible
and reducing drilling speeds immediately before the
bit exits the workpiece. To avoid clogging the flutes
of a twist drill bit, our expert machinists clear away
long, spiraling chips produced when drilling plastics.
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