Thick Gauge Parts

Home > Products > Thick Gauge PartsFormTight, Inc. produces thick gauge component parts for many industries. These parts are normally produced to high tolerances so that they fit into your final assembly. These parts are produced from a wide variety of materials like ABS, High Impact Styrene, Polyethylene, Fire Retardant ABS, ABS/PVC’s, ROHS compliant materials, etc.  The thick gauge parts  are usually .060" thick up to .500" thick.

We can produce parts up to 5 feet x 7 feet x 3 feet tall. After your part is formed, we can fabricate the part to your finish dimensions.  We can fabricate with our 5 axis CNC router or by hand with fixtures.  The method used to fabricate really depends on your tolerances, quantities, and turn around needed.

Prototypes - When prototyping it is normal to use a wooden mold to form the part and then fabricate by laying out the part by hand.  Cutting, drilling and sanding follow to complete the part. This process works well to get an idea proven with a relatively low cost. The wood mold is usually good for 10's or even 100's of parts depending on geometry and type of plastic used.

            When part tolerances are critical we can have the mold produced from “Ren Board”.  This material is stable syntactic foam that is machinable. This material machines and finishes faster than aluminum and is the process of choice for a high tolerance prototype. The “Ren” prototype is usually good for up to 50 parts and is more expensive than the wooden mold.

Production- Most production molds are made from either cast aluminum or machined aluminum.  The cast mold is made using the prototype wooden mold as a pattern in the sand casting process.  The machined aluminum mold is made from your drawings or from your part files such as iges, dwg, stl, etc.  Normally the cast mold is less expensive, especially when you need a large part.

Fabrication - We can fabricate your part to size by cutting the perimeter to size, drilling holes, cutting internal shapes, adhering  blocks for threaded inserts etc. Whatever your part needs afterward, FormTight can do. Our CNC router can fabricate up to 60" x 60" x 24" tall.  This machinery is perfect for the high tolerance production part, once programmed repeating fabrication is guaranteed.

FormTight takes you from prototyping to production in approximately four to six weeks. Prototypes normally take about one and one half weeks from the time we identify your need. Once approval has been given, we require four weeks to tool up and begin production.