Is it blow molding or roto molding?I always assumed roto and then they IP the squeaker and either insert mold it or assemble it post.

In August 2009, Wincove Capital acquired GI Plastek. Six years later, Gladstone Investment Corp. acquired Wincove-GIP Acquisition Inc. (d.b.a. GI Plastek) from Wincove Capital.

For anything I’ve seen rotomolded I always felt like it was larger parts, poor exterior surface quality, and usually the higher cycle time makes it not great for super cheap stuff.

Latex is slush cast or slipcast just like ceramic in plaster molds. slightly more durable than vinyl depending on how you measure but with a much shorter lifespan.

If you are thinking of importing PVC products, be aware that they can contain material that is prohibited for sale in California or prohibited for sale without labeling. The law is called Prop 65. The list of materials is available here: https://oehha.ca.gov/proposition-65/proposition-65-list As a designer, you can’t really validate this in your garage, but inspection services can. Some services are Bureau Veritas, SGS, MTS or contact a testing laboratory. Even in Canada, most labs have a prop 65 testing protocol.

TPE’s, a very wide class of Thermo PLastic Elastomers can be blow molded or injection molded. (in my experience vinyl and pvc used for blow molding is rigid and not the same low durometer “squeakable” stuff used in rotocasting). In blowmolding there is obviously no core but you have wall thickness limitations. When injection molding there is a core or mandrel suspended in the mold cavity. For minor undercuts you can use the ejection stroke to remove the mandrel if you design the tool right but in most cases of hollow parts its a manual process where the part and mandrel are removed after each shot, mounted on a fixture and either leveraged off with brute force or if there are no other openings in the part you can run an airline through the mandrel and blow compressed air through to launch the parts off like a rocket.

Vinyl/PVC toys like bath toys and the cheapest dog toys are usually rotocast in a bank of molds that get filled with liquid, pelletized or powdered raw materials. This goes in to a furnace, spins real fast and then comes out to cool off, the toys are ripped out of small opening in the mold which creates a sloppy area on the part and its usually trimmed and filled in with a molded plug that would house the squeaker. This can also be done in a slush casting process using a vinyl plastisol. In some cases you might rotocast liquid RTV materials. Most of these materials are not highly durable.

Haven’t done any squeeky toys myself, but for the dog toys I’m thinking of, I would have assumed blow molding since usually there is a good smooth finish and an obvious clamp mark for a gas injection point, plus the smaller size and surface finish.

But I admit I could be wrong and just basing those assumption on samples I saw long ago. Never touched either process in my line of work.

You answered your own question, it’s blow molding. Soft elastomer materials are pretty easy to yank tools out of, especially if the material is still warm. Theres also collapsing cores and other options.

On my last trip to China i saw a pneumatic machine that i designed to help bring some automation and robot assistance to this process on the production line of every rubber supplier i visited, i only ever sent the plans to one supplier.

I’ve always used roto casting too, with spray ops for any deco. Like Ray mentions, you really need to watch out for some of those materials, especially including Phthalates, which are commonly used to soften material used in roto casting.

Thanks guys. I wish there was a video of this process. Normally I can just youtube any manufacturing question and see it on youtube or on old clips of “how things are made”. I’m curious if they use a rotomolded process, they must do multiples of them and I envision they put these molds or mold (with multiple cavities) on a rotating 2-3 axis mechanism.

GI Plastek is a manufacturer of custom injection molded products using structural foam, gas assist and straight injection molding. It also offers value-added assembly and secondary finishing operations, including painting, inserting and decorating. The company’s press sizes run from 220 to 1,574 tons. In 2016, GI Plastek added two new large tonnage machines with an 1,100- and 500-ton clamping force and installed a new multi-booth mechanized paint line for a total investment of $2 million, according to the company’s website.

GI Plastek (Wolfeboro, NH) has merged with Precision Southeast Inc. (Myrtle Beach, SC) to create PSI Molded Plastics Inc. Citizens Bank’s Commercial Banking unit is providing $23 million in credit to help fund the merger.

Thermosets or vulcanates like natural rubber can be compression molded, injection molded, or compression/injection molded. Same process as above but natural rubber has a higher stress/strain than most TPE so you can pull enormous mandrels out of tiny holes. And when it comes to elastomeric materials natural rubber is incredibly durable

The transaction facilitates the merger of two Gladstone Investment Corp. portfolio companies to establish a custom injection molding company with facilities in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Indiana that offer a comprehensive range of plastic injection molding capabilities. The credit agreement was used to pay off existing debt and to consolidate the debt capital in the resulting consolidated entity.

I recommend vinyl because it looks great and can be downcycled into flooring. You can look into extrusion blow molding TPE or EVA but it will likely require some R&D before the factory gets it right.

Precision Southeast Inc., which also has a facility in Indiana, specializes in custom injection molding along with several engineering services, including metal-to-plastic conversions, rapid prototyping and tooling. The company’s press sizes range from 20 to 600 tons. Precision offers overmolding and in-mold assembly and a range of value-add services, such as assembly, ultrasonic welding, leak testing and decorating that includes pad printing and hot stamping.

As an aside to the manufacturing of the outer, if you’re looking for it to make any noise you can have some fun playing with different bellow sizes and different reeds for a great range of sounds! And they don’t all need to be reeds, they can be compression and even things that you bend that make unusual sounds! Great fun to play around with, really makes you feel like a kid!

Blow molding is a good technique for molding these toys but mostly if the product has to have a relatively strong and lightweight outer shell. It also has a cycle time at least 10x faster than rotational molding. But the advantages of rotomolding are that it works for more types of polymers including soft PUs, tooling costs are much lower, and it is easy to experiment with production parameters. That is the reason why these toys are often rotationally molded.

The merger establishes a custom injection molding company with facilities in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Indiana that offer a comprehensive range of plastic injection molding capabilities.

Until she retired in September 2021, Clare Goldsberry reported on the plastics industry for more than 30 years. In addition to the 10,000+ articles she has written, by her own estimation, she is the author of several books, including The Business of Injection Molding: How to succeed as a custom molder and Purchasing Injection Molds: A buyers guide. Goldsberry is a member of the Plastics Pioneers Association. She reflected on her long career in "Time to Say Good-Bye."

@ralphzoontjens could you please re-post the link to the video of how squeakers are made? The link you posted previously no longer works. If anyone reading this can help with the link or has a similar video they can share it would be greatly appreciated!

on my first trip to China i saw a part from my company that was 8" in diameter with a .4" wall thickness that was molded over a steel core that was pulled out of a 1.5" opening in the part. The part had nearly a 10 minute cycle time, two cavity mold, when the parts came out 1 worker would pick up the core and part, and hang it from a fixture while two dudes with bulging biceps used tire spoons to wrestle that part off the mandrel. At this point there have been millions sold.

Looking at this for a client and I’ve searched the internet. Any kid or pet toy that has a hollow center made out of soft durometer material. I figure it’s some sort of a blow molding process. Some toys have open ends on them but I wouldnt think you could pull a core out of it without ripping the material. Help anyone?