Injection moulding poly supers?

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my message has come over in the wrong way rather than injection moulding your hives what i was suggesting was casting your hives.

it is standard in most industries with this sort of mould to buy it from the far east and when it arrives to use a english company to do any adjustments to it in the uk.

i would buy the tooling( mould) but use an english company to get them made , in that case they have the knowledge and equipment its the tooling that does the costs in as they will charge you for it.

I must admit that poly hive does realy make sound sence here . to get the chambers in poly and made from a proper equipment maker and to use wood else where.

what about looking into a mixture of the two?
 
The tooling for mould making to the layman looks very easy and not that costly to make, but the proses is very lengthy and time consuming, a model is made to the exact dimensions in wood/plastic, you then have to decide on the material of the finished product to asses the shrinkage of the finished article, that taken into account, a model is made to an increased size to allow for the said shrinkage, plus shrinkage for the cast aluminum mould, the model of the increased size, would now have a fiberglass skin put on with flanges ribs clamping pads, and built to the same thickness as the aluminum mould, the hole of the model will be encased in side and out top and bottom, then it will be removed in sections cleaned and polished checked to see if it can be molded in sand at the foundry, when the casting is returned it has to be cleaned and polished to a high gloss finish , inserts fitted clamps too hold it together, a method is needed to fill or inject the product.
Thats the basic method of mould making, CAD and CNC has made things simpler but has it's own problems.
It's a very expensive proses, if the tooling was cheaper so would the product.

Regardsbee-smillie
John
 
Not forgetting the through put quantities affecting final pricing :coolgleamA:

John Wilkinson
 
What about vacuum forming skins, then liquid foam injection into the inner?
Just a thought. The tooling would be much lower cost.
 
It would be nice to see the french production line, on the web page it does show the new injection machines, it's a shame they don't do national's.?

Regards
John
 
Never seen it mentioned on here but there is a firm in Cornwall (Beehive Supplies) selling national poly hives which they say are moulded in the UK.

I have had no dealings with them.
 
Evening,

Whilst rooting around in a rotting heap of beehives yesterday (someone had said i could help my self to anything that was any use..... not alot!) I came across alot of fibre glass shell hives, they were very thin and would probably require some insulation if you were planning to use them over the winter but the chap said they had been made by a chap near hinckley who made alot like it and thought they had been a fractyion of the cost of buying timber hives,

Now i would not use them as a brood box or permenant hive but they might be usefull as summer supers, just a thought as they were fairly simple.

I haven't taken any photo's however if you want me to go back with a camera i could.

C B
 
Evening,

Whilst rooting around in a rotting heap of beehives yesterday (someone had said i could help my self to anything that was any use..... not alot!) I came across alot of fibre glass shell hives, they were very thin and would probably require some insulation if you were planning to use them over the winter but the chap said they had been made by a chap near hinckley who made alot like it and thought they had been a fractyion of the cost of buying timber hives,

Now i would not use them as a brood box or permenant hive but they might be usefull as summer supers, just a thought as they were fairly simple.

I haven't taken any photo's however if you want me to go back with a camera i could.

C B

Thanks CB. Very interesting. My dad used to make a lot from fibre glass. I'll ask him what he thinks. Don't worry about a photo unless going there anyeway - I reckon I can probably picture it.
 
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