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Visibility of parting line on GF30 PA6 injection molded handle

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T
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Hello everyone, how visible can the parting line be on final molded parts? My team is currently designing a handle cover for an industrial machine, injection molded in PA6 with 30% glass fiber. Aesthetics aren’t critical, but the part is customer-facing, so I’d like to minimize visible defects. The tooling will have a vertical split due to undercuts, and I’m trying to estimate how pronounced the parting line will be on the final part. I know it depends on tooling quality and maintenance, but has anyone worked with glass-filled PA6 in a similar setup?

    • T

      Hello everyone, how visible can the parting line be on final molded parts? My team is currently designing a handle cover for an industrial machine, injection molded in PA6 with 30% glass fiber. Aesthetics aren’t critical, but the part is customer-facing, so I’d like to minimize visible defects. The tooling will have a vertical split due to undercuts, and I’m trying to estimate how pronounced the parting line will be on the final part. I know it depends on tooling quality and maintenance, but has anyone worked with glass-filled PA6 in a similar setup?

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    • C

      That material is going to make this a challenge – PA6 GF30 gives a matt surface finish, and that tends to show up imperfections easier. Also, because there are glass fibers in it, the risk of irregularities at the parting line is higher. Please see whether you can get away with a lower % glass infill, like GF15, if that doesn’t lower the strength too much.

      You may need to have Plan B prepared if it doesn’t look great – sanding or polishing the handle cover after manufacture.

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    • M

      Will you design your molds specifically for use with a glass-filled material? Mold design needs to take that into account, as the glass fiber alignment can be affected depending on inflow. The mold material also needs to take the greater wear into account.

      I realize that needing a vertical split for the undercuts probably makes it more difficult to get the parting line somewhere convenient, but you just gotta try your best to hide it somewhere on an edge or something. If you really wanna try to minimize the parting line, you can get more complex with your mold design – conformal cooling channels, flow simulation software, etc – but it honestly sounds like that’s not gonna be worth it for this part.

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Visibility of parting line on GF30 PA6 injection molded handle
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