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Northeast Mold and Plastics, Inc. : CAE Services Established in 1983, Glastonbury, CT-based Northeast Mold and Plastics, Inc. is a custom plastic injection molding operation. It serves many industries including medical, automotive, electronics, filtration, communications, consumer goods, instrumentation, and others. The family-owned company employs approximately 35 people and it operates 24 hours, six days per week. Its operations include 15 injection molding machines ranging from 28 to 300 tons. According to Ron Bodeau, Northeast Mold and Plastics' Vice President of Operations, "We are becoming heavily involved in two-shot molding. Currently we operate three two-shot machines and are considering a fourth rotary shuttle unit with vertical clamps for insert molding." He says that the company typically addresses jobs starting at 50,000 pieces. Bodeau is responsible for customer relations, all the cost estimating, as well as reviewing and purchasing of capital equipment. Nearly one year ago, the company's mold operators were experiencing non-filling and burning at the end of the two-shot thermal plastic elastomer. "After doing some research, we contacted CAE Services and purchased a Mold-Vac unit," adds Bodeau. Mold-Vac units are portable and are designed to eliminate entrapped air and gas within mold cavities prior to and during injection molding cycles. To date, the company is running one Mold-Vac unit on the same production mold non-stop. "We have been so pleased with the system that we would purchase another one when the need arises," Bodeau notes. He says that as result of using Mold-Vac, their mold fills more efficiently, less injection pressure is required, gas trapping and part burning is decreased, and, best of all, less time is required to fill the mold. In addition, Northeast Mold and Plastics incorporated the use of this Mold-Vac unit on a prototype mold and will certainly include it in the design of the production mold. "The Mold-Vac unit was easy to install and operate. Within one hour out of the box, it was up and running. It's a wonderful machine. The unit we bought is probably larger in capacity than what is required but I like the fact that it's well built and extremely easy to install and use. I like the blow-back and vacuum system features. The blow-back option allows us to blow out vent pins so it's essentially self-cleaning," Bodeau says. When he contacted Mark Solberg, vice-president of sales and marketing for CAE Services, to investigate Mold-Vac, Bodeau says Solberg was very responsive to suit Northeast Mold's needs. "Once he helped us spec the appropriate Mold-Vac unit and provided pricing, we had an order placed within a matter of days. We have been very satisfied with CAE Services and our Mold-Vac unit." Bodeau adds. For more information about Northeast Mold and Plastics, go to www.nemold.com. Go to www.caeservices.com for more information about CAE Services and Mold-Vac. To contact the writer, write to lcarrabine@earthlink.net. Author: Laura Carrabine |