TAP Plastics/Acme Plastics experience?

[Michael R]

Another of my styrene-related questions…

I need some squares and rectangles cut from 1/8” thick styrene and I’m tiring of doing it myself. Pain in the ass. These would be for assembling some boxes.

Two options I’m looking at for custom cuts are Acme and Tap. I’m leaning toward Tap because their standard tolerance is +/- 1/16” vs 1/8” for Acme (although they indicate it is usually less). To be honest I was a little surprised there is that much slop. Even 1/16” kind of sucks in my opinion. But I can deal with it for this particular application. These box structures don’t need to be perfect so high precision isn’t required.

Any experience with either of these companies?

Thanks

[Bob Salomon]

Not sure how many outlets they have but if you mean Acme Plastic in New Jersey we used them a lot and they were excellent.

[Michael R]

Hi Bob, it's this outfit I looked at...
https://www.acmeplastics.com/nj-corporate-headquarters-and-primary-distribution-center



Not sure how many outlets they have but if you mean Acme Plastic in New Jersey we used them a lot and they were excellent.

[Bob Salomon]

Hi Bob, it's this outfit I looked at...
https://www.acmeplastics.com/nj-corporate-headquarters-and-primary-distribution-center

Great people and service.

[Michael R]

Great people and service.

That's great news. Thanks for your feedback on this.

[Drew Wiley]

I use Tap for casual amounts of various plastic because they're convenient and nearby. If I need precision cuts, I do that myself using oversized stock. But I'm well equipped to efficiently do that. It is really difficult for a retail plastics shop to do precise work at a reasonable cost. I also know that, at least in this region where Tap began, they have a centralized fabrication division which can quote more involved tasks.

[Graham Patterson]

I probably use the same TAP retail store as Drew. 1/16" is close enough for anything I have needed, and I have always got what I requested. I cannot speak for finer tolerances and consistency - my stuff has been largely single custom parts. The store staff are generally very helpful, but dealing in person makes things a little easier.

[Michael R]

Thanks this is all good info. Looks like both places are good.

Drew, just curious how you do precision cuts? What sort of machinery do you use for things like styrene or ABS? I don't have any equipment so up until now I've done everything by hand, which isn't much fun when it comes to anything more than around 0.5mm in thickness. For example if I need a straight cut through 1/8" styrene I have to use a plastic scoring knife, and then spend a lot of time sanding, which is difficult to do by hand if you want true straight edges with flat/perpendicular faces for bonding. It's also damn tiring!

Both Acme and TAP seem to offer higher precision/tighter tolerances if required, which is good to know, though probably expensive.

[Tin Can]

New Hobby Cutters

https://www.brother-usa.com/home/cutting-machines/products#sort=relevancy

[Havoc]

Wouldn't you be better of by looking at a company providing laser cutting? Tolerance is lower than what you quote. The one I used previously (not for plastic) does styrene, PP, PE and plexi. They quote tolerances around 0.5mm but the cut has a 7.5° angle.

I don't have an address in the US but I'm sure any search machine will find them for you.

[Tin Can]

https://www.tapplastics.com/

[Michael R]

I’m always open to suggestions. For this particular application I don’t need precision but there are a few other things I’ve worked on that do require relatively fine tolerances and I don’t want to do them by hand anymore.


Wouldn't you be better of by looking at a company providing laser cutting? Tolerance is lower than what you quote. The one I used previously (not for plastic) does styrene, PP, PE and plexi. They quote tolerances around 0.5mm but the cut has a 7.5° angle.

I don't have an address in the US but I'm sure any search machine will find them for you.

[MartinP]

I have made project parts from 3mm and 5mm styrene sheets and it is very easy to cut by hand with a saw (fine full-size hacksaw or coarse jewellers saw, depending on the part) rather than a knife. It obviously depends on the size of the item though, as a part several feet long would be awkward to cut and finish, so I suppose that is the sort of thing you mean. My largest stuff has only been up to about 200mm long by 120mm wide and, with hand finishing, precision is better than 0,25mm (1/16" is about 1,6mm). Probably a small bandsaw, a slow cutting-speed and some simple jigs would be the ideal solution?

[Drew Wiley]

No, not Brother hobby cutters. 1/8 inch Styrene is hard and stiff, and not like soft vinyl. And for solvent welding you need clean square edge but preferably with a tiny bit of tooth; lasers are not going to give you that without some post-sanding.

Now how do I personally do it? No, not with a hacksaw blade attached at one end to a flexible willow stick and to a wagging hound dog tail at the other. In the past I had a customized horizontal cutting table with a special small high RPM circular saw (not a toy by any means), and a specialized blade of the type used for airline honeycomb aluminum panels, so capable of handling all kinds of plastics too, and even plastic-aluminum sandwiched composites.

Then I switched over to my big wall-mounted dual-rail Fletcher scoring and knife machine, which is useful for all kinds of thicker darkroom materials like fomeboard too. The plastics scorer trims the material to size nicely; but I still have to precisely smooth and square the edges for sake of solvent welding using a laminate trimming bit on the router table. That certainly worked well enough for all my slot-style print washers.

Now I'm most likely to use my Festool rail saw with appropriate plastics blade, atop my tricked-out Festool shop table. This has excellent dust control due to the integral vacuum system. Won't say what I paid (or didn't pay), since I set up the main dealership in this half of the country and was given an incentive to know what I was doing. But today, you might pay about 3K for that kind of setup. It works so well that no post-edging or sanding on a router table is even needed. Doing small pieces is tricky unless you make appropriate jigs.

But if I were in Michaels shoes, I'd do precise strip cuts on the Festool table, then size those down into all the little sections using a very nice small Makita Japanese-mfg power mitre saw (no longer made) with its precision stop system. Their own current bait and switch Chinese made equivalent is probably around $250. The last of the actual Japanese ones (designed at my request, incidentally) went for around $1000 at the bitter end, but only around $375 originally. The Fukushima disaster changed everything when it causes energy prices to soar in Japan. That was the demise of the former Japanese miniature circular saw model too.

[Michael R]

Drew, wouldn’t all those power cutting options simply melt the styrene?

[Drew Wiley]

No - exactly the opposite, Michael. It's precisely what professional sign companies prefer for even delicate brittle plastics, as well as honeycomb aluminum panel specialists, an even fussier application. Some have even switched over from hundred thousand dollar panel saws to this kind of portable gear. You need to recognize that it is not like the regular kind of Cheapo Depot circular saw you see carpenter's casually working with, though they'd get quite a few tasks done more efficiently if they did. And using the correct blade is equally important.

But unless you have multiple uses for this kind of gear, it is a bit of a stiff investment. One compromise you could realistically make
is to get the Plastics shop to cut your material into consistent linear strips, then just size it down sectionally using a good mitre saw with a sizing stop and clamping system - maybe a $400 investment, not including any vac dust extraction gear - gotta be careful about that - certain kinds of dust including plastic can generate a lot of static and potentially turn an ordinary shop vac into a little Chernobyl incident. Seen it happen. But fine light plastic dust flying all around onto everything isn't fun either.

I don't know your comfort level with power equipment. The kind I've described is safer and quieter than most, but still one should inventory their fingers both before and after use. Even the safest power tools aren't foolproof; and even I don't personally use mine if I'm not alert. Correct technique alleviates almost all the risk, so it's important to learn from something better than most web videos, which often seem like they were designed for slicing off mass spare body parts for Frankenstein monster builders, so dangerously stupid are some of them! The actual Festool site has appropriate instructional downloads.

There is a specific Festool accessory jig made specifically for repetitive precise strip cuts with their rail saw. But there's a distinct learning curve to any of this.

[Michael R]

...and now the next problem with this. I need a few plastic gears. Not anything high-load or high precision. But they have to be resistant to typical black and white chemicals. Seems like it should be easy but for some reason not. I can't really find any that are made of the typical darkroom plastics (HDPE, HIPS styrene, PVC, ABS etc.). They seem to mostly be various types of Acetal (Delrin for example) and Nylon. Understandable I guess since these are better for moving parts, although they absorb a lot more water than styrene.

Any ideas? Sources? I've looked at a few places like NHK and SDP-SI.

I wonder if I could get away with the commonly used Acetal M90-44 ("Duracon"?). It would only ever really be exposed to weak/dilute acids/bases and salt solutions, and not for ridiculously long periods of time - just film processing.

Worst case maybe I can use Lego (ABS)? :)

Or perhaps I should use stainless steel gears.

[neil poulsen]

I think that probably much can depend on local management. But, I've built many projects with the indispensable help of Tap Plastics in Portland, OR, and I've always been very satisfied.

For the volume of work that they do, I don't think that 1/16" tolerance is too bad. Usually, if a dimension is that critical, it's because I have to have two pieces with exactly the same dimension. In that case, I will ask them to cut both pieces at the same time. Or, I might have them cut a piece 1/16th" over, and then narrow it to exact dimensions with a belt sander that I have.

It's rare that I have to return a second time for my cuts. As long as I explain which cuts are critical, they do their best right then to keep them accurate.

[Drew Wiley]

Any skilled small cabinet maker could be hired to do this very precisely, especially if you offered to buy the appropriate circular plastics blade for him, which don't come cheap. But exact dimension isn't as important as sheer consistency of dimension, which Tap should be able to provide once they lock down their settings. Just communicate well in advance and don't be in a rush, so that they can give the project due attention.

Gearing : there are specialty suppliers for this very kind of thing. Do a web search, or try McMaster first. No, you don't want ABS; nobody is likely to make gears out of that anyway unless its some toyish application. You want machinable solvent-resistant Delrin or durable HMW (high molecular weight) nylon, Acetal, or perhaps 316 stainless steel (noisier). At the heading of each catalog section, including their online catalog, McMaster gives good specification comparisons on the various materials. Then you can home in on more thorough solvent resistant specifications of potential candidates looking elsewhere.

[LabRat]

For gears, those who serviced processors would have literally buckets of gears from dismantled processors they saved for future repair work, so see who serviced processors/minilabs in your area for sizes you might be able to use...

Steve K

[Michael R]

The gears are a confusing rathole. McMaster was where I first looked. They have nylon and acetal. If you look up chemical compatibility charts for acetal/Delrin, photographic solutions are explicitly indicated to be bad (although exposure tests are typically 24-48 hour immersion). There are many types of nylon. A common type for gears seems to be MC901 (Nylon 6). Chemical compatibility is indicated as good for photographic solutions, however these types of nylon do absorb water, which could be problematic over time. Not sure. They seem to generally be recommended for dry applications.

Stainless seems to predominantly be 303 because it’s much easier to machine gears out of it than 316. Perhaps 303 is resistant enough for this application. I don’t know.

PTFE (Teflon) would be best but I can’t seem to find suppliers.

Sourcing this stuff isn’t easy. Gears for hobbies are simple to find in general (brass, etc.) but not chemical-resistant plastic gears.

I suspect I’ll have to just try either nylon or 303 stainless and see what happens.


Any skilled small cabinet maker could be hired to do this very precisely, especially if you offered to buy the appropriate circular plastics blade for him, which don't come cheap. But exact dimension isn't as important as sheer consistency of dimension, which Tap should be able to provide once they lock down their settings. Just communicate well in advance and don't be in a rush, so that they can give the project due attention.

Gearing : there are specialty suppliers for this very kind of thing. Do a web search, or try McMaster first. No, you don't want ABS; nobody is likely to make gears out of that anyway unless its some toyish application. You want machinable solvent-resistant Delrin or durable HMW (high molecular weight) nylon, Acetal, or perhaps 316 stainless steel (noisier). At the heading of each catalog section, including their online catalog, McMaster gives good specification comparisons on the various materials. Then you can home in on more thorough solvent resistant specifications of potential candidates looking elsewhere.

[Dugan]

Maybe a Colex/Colenta rep or service tech can let you know what type of plastic they use(d) for their gears?

[Drew Wiley]

Searching for an Ivory Billed Woodpecker, eh?

[Dugan]

And that comment was helpful how, Drew?

[Michael R]

And that comment was helpful how, Drew?

As an aside, a quick google of Colex-Colenta turned up this place I was not aware of

http://www.footprintsequipment.com/Items.asp?C=Colex-Colenta&P=Processors

Not directly related to my current project but might be an interesting potential resource for people.

I’ve reached out to a few people to see what they’d recommend.

It may be that I’m over-complicating/over-engineering. “Photographic chemicals” covers a lot of different things, but for my purposes the range is considerably narrowed. Photographic solutions are also typically fairly dilute, which helps. Still, what I might start out with are some MC901 (Nylon 6) gears, which are fairly standard, and just soak them for a while in water, and some photographic solutions, to see how they do. If I can find a source for gears made of more resistant plastic (ideally PTFE/Teflon, or perhaps HDPE) that would be better.

[Michael R]

Thought I'd post a quick update re Tap Plastics. I was pleased overall. I initially tried to place this order with Acme but was then advised by them they don't ship outside the U.S. Unfortunate. Anyway...

I placed an order for a bunch of 1/8" HIPS (styrene) rectangles in various sizes to assemble into tanks. Some sizes were too small to select routed edges but I selected the option where possible. Pricing for the material and cutting was very cheap in my opinion, especially considering the relatively low volume of my order (20 pcs total). In fact the shipping cost more than the order itself.

The order was done and shipped out the next day.

Accuracy/quality was good for the price in my opinion. Not precision work, but good enough for this application. Some of the pieces were pretty much bang on, and none were out by more than approx. +1/32" to +1/16" in any dimension. I had to fine tune a few of the pieces, but that was ok with me considering it would have taken me days to cut and sand all of this by hand (I don't have power tools). Perhaps most importantly, all the edges were perfectly square even where not routed, which is important for good solvent welding, and is brutal to do by hand.

Obviously this is not for things requiring high precision, and it won't be as good as one equipped with proper tools could do at home, but it was a good solution for me in this case.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, I guess I won't have to sober up my plastic-eating pet termite so it can walk a straight line.

[Michael R]

Seems like a strange choice for a pet, but ok.

[Drew Wiley]

All plastic termites only eat plastic, so no worries about the house timbers, unless its synthetic PVC decking or siding. But no worse than the plastic gophers and that eat Astroturf lawns and artificial flowers.

[Michael R]

All plastic termites only eat plastic, so no worries about the house timbers, unless its synthetic PVC decking or siding. But no worse than the plastic gophers and that eat Astroturf lawns and artificial flowers.

I’m not sure what any of this has to do with my Tap Plastics order, but ok.