MTD Micro Molding, Charlton, Mass., which specializes in microinjection molding for the medical device industry, has made a significant investment to expand its overmolding services. As part of this investment, it recently acquired a new vertical injection molding machine, which has been designed and further customized for higher capacity overmolding. Overmolding involves two or more materials molded together to become one part, such as molding two plastics together or molding plastic around a metal insert. Because overmolding requires no foreign materials like adhesives, it’s possible to achieve greater part functionality that’s critical to medical devices, like creating a water-resistant seal. Executive Vice President Gary Hulecki said the investment is in response to a growing need for precision overmolding from the customer base. OEMs benefit from precision overmolding by improving shot-to-shot consistency and overall part quality for their medical device components. Common medical overmolding components that MTD Micro Molding has produced include catheter tips, suturing devices, sports medicine implants and orthopedic devices where a PEEK polymer is molded over or through metal. A more unusual project was a 5-piece microassembly device overmolded with glass-filled liquid crystal polymer. MTD Micro Molding is a vertically integrated micromolder with all tooling services located in-house. It has 13 molding presses and 31 employees.
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