www.TK560.com

[jegner]

http://www.instructables.com/id/How_to_make_artificial_fishing_bait_for_little_to_/

Some of his techniques might need some adjustments, but the idea of taking a hot glue gun as the heater core for the plastic, and making a different 'fast' plunger is pretty cool.

YMMV

Jim

[CrazyFool]

Thanks for the link Jim. Funny. I was just thumbing through the booklet Secrets of Building a Plastic Injection Molding Machine by Vincent Gingery. The last few days I've been experimenting with pouring different types of liquid plastic into silicone rubber molds and, although I am a complete novice and it may get easier, it seems like a real pain if you are looking to do a large run of parts. I haven't given up on pouring plastic yet, but my thoughts have begun drifting towards building a plastic injection molding machine.

The booklet above describes in great detail how to make a machine that will produce 1/2 ounce parts. That's a bit too small for me. If I do attempt to make the machine my plan is to build one about 10 times larger that can produce 5 ounce parts. I'm not sure how feasible building a larger capacity machine is, but it can't be rocket science so I may give it a go.

One neat thing I learned is that you can sand cast aluminum molds for use in the injection molding machine... or you can even use simple Plaster of Paris so long is it is surrounded by a metal box. So, there is no need to machine a cold rolled steel mold.

[jegner]

I think there can be some serious updates to the Instructibles version, but I do like the hot melt glue gun heater and plunger core idea. I may have to tinker around with this a bit. Recycle some old plastic models in a meat grinder, and give this a try!