Many don't exactly find injection molding interesting, let alone even know about. However, I've made it my personal goal to, at the very least, get people to begin started on the road towards finding out how things are made! One can easily forget that what they just bought at the store was in fact made by the inventions of people over several years as well as by the hands of specialists and people with a variety of expertise. In fact, this is so often overlooked that it can be pretty fascinating to learn all the ins and outs of plastic extrusion process. Man and machine working together in order to make it easier on the population. It's really a beautiful thing to watch and while researching and working alongside specialists in the industry, I've grown to actually respect them for their hard work and dedication. They're responsible for so many plastic products and byproducts that have been in use for years, and will be in use for years to come.

It's better to first get you acquainted to the idea of injection molding. However, I don't want to overwhelm you with the vast technical details at this particular time, as I will write about those in future essays. To put it simply, injection molding is defined as a process for making different parts from the materials thermoplastic and thermosetting plastic. Industrial designers and engineers design a product, then another specialist makes a mold out of the design from a metal byproduct (mostly steel, and often aluminum) and a machine comes in to form the features!

One of my favorite parts of the injection molding process (and really the first thing that I began with when researching the subject) is its history. Throughout the entirety of the 1800's and 1900's, bright and driven people have committed to making the injection molding process easier for everyone involved (including the consumers)! Synthetic (man-made) plastic material was first conceived by Alexander Parkes (Britain, 1851). He called the material Parkesine, and as sometimes happens when coming up with a new material, it turned out to be far from perfect.

Parkesine, as might be expected for what is essentially the first of its kind, had several faults. First of all, and really most importantly, Parkesine was highly flammable. This led to an incredible amount of risk for all those working on it. Moreover, the finished products were expensive, but flimsy, and were widely known to crack and break. Thankfully, In 1868, American John Wesley Hyatt improved Parkesine.

With John Wesley Hyatt, injection molded products became realizable. Hyatt's invention made it possible for his plastic material (celluloid) to be truly processed and still hold durable. In addition, John and his brother, Isaiah joined forces in order to release the world's very first injection molding machine in the year 1872. The Hyatt brothers' machines were much simpler than the complex ones we have today, but there's no argument about this point in history being a huge stepping stone for injection molding.

Following the introduction of Hyatt's injection molding machine, the industry rapidly grew. Now that the process of injection molding was really being set into play, new ideas and innovators were stepping up to the plate, ready to improve. Different versions of Hyatts' machines were made in order to produce different products, including collar clips, hair combs, and even buttons.

Then World War II came, and with it, a huge increase in demands for a vast quantity of cheaper products. Another inventor from America, James Watson Hendry, revolutionized injection molding in 1945. What he did was introduce the screw injection molding machine. With his invention, specialists had a better handle on how to control the speed at which the plastic material was injected; the invention also upped the quality of the materials produced.

On top of the increase in control, the new machine made it possible for the material to be mixed. Specialists had the ability to add colors to the plastic mixtures, thus providing a much more attractive spread of hurricane panels. At present, most of the industry utilizes a type of screw injection molding. Hendry continued on into the 1970's, making an molding machine that used gas, which in the long run reduced time, cost, weight, and waste.