Custom Die Cut Parts for Industry

Mack Nov 14th 2008

Manufacturing may not be the staple of the American economy that it once was, but there are still countless numbers of small factories in this country that manufacture a wide variety of products. American factories tend to operate on a smaller scale and rely on subcontractors to supply specialty products such as custom die cut parts to reduce factory tooling requirements and lower overall costs. Plastic signage manufacturing would be a good example of where custom die cut parts might be acquired from a specialty shop that can produce mass quantities of component parts that are later assembled at the plastic signage plant. The oddly shaped letters for a ‘Toys R Us’ sign might be a good example of custom die cut parts that are later assembled into a finished product.

Custom Die Cut Parts Offer Precision

The obvious advantage of die cutting any material is precision. Custom die cut parts are produced with uncompromising uniformity to assure rapid and problem free assembly of these components into a finished product. Once the ‘die has been cast’, as they say, its dimensions will never change, and each component part produced from that die will be precisely like the one before it. Quality, precision, and uniformity can be expected from custom die cut parts that have been produced for any industry.

Template Scribed Cutting is Less Precise

Some manufacturing facilities that operate on a smaller scale, particularly when dealing with a soft material such as plastic, will use a template scribing approach to creating component parts needed for a finished product. A template may be placed on the raw material, its shape scribed or traced by hand, and finally, a variety of cutting techniques may be used to produce the component. Custom die cut parts, of course, offer greater precision because the two step, scribe and cut process has been reduced to a single cutting action that eliminates the potential for human error in the scribing procedure. In the plastics industry, die cutting is typically used in conjunction with raw materials such as:

  • Films
  • Plastic sheet goods
  • Acrylics, polycarbonates, and other composites
  • Flat and corrugated stock
  • Hard and soft plastic solid stock
  • Rod goods and more

 

Custom Die Cut Parts Offer Greater Economy

Die cutting of any material, hard or soft, offers speed, precise uniformity, and increased economy when compared to other material cutting techniques. Factories around the world rely heavily on custom die cut parts for a broad spectrum of consumer products and durable goods that are manufactured in the world today. Assembly lines run at peak efficiency when individual components offer a perfect fit every time, and as a result, custom die cut parts have always played an important role in manufacturing. The principle of die cutting has been around for hundreds of years—a perfect example being a cookie cutter—and the overall quality of many of the everyday products we take for granted can be directly attributed to the precision and uniformity of custom die cut parts.