Thermoforming, the general term for vacuum forming (or vacuforming), is our specialty. Our production environment is designed to efficiently handle small or large production runs. Waveform's state of the art, fully automated, radiant heat thermoforming machines allow us to achieve short cycle time with minimum operator intervention, which translates into consistent quality, predictable lead-times, and cost savings for you. Custom control systems make our thermoformers very flexible, and ensure that they operate at optimum efficiency and with consistent repeatability.
Thermoforming occupies a unique niche in the plastics industry, offering many benefits over other plastics molding techniques. Low tooling costs allow thermoforming to compete directly with fiberglass, wood, and metal fabrication while achieving higher production rates and lower part costs. The greatest economies in thermoforming are achieved at low to moderate volumes (10 to 10,000 units per year depending on the part size).
For many applications, thermoforming can offer a number of advantages over injection molding, including substantially lower tooling costs, greatly reduced prototyping and production cycles, and ultimately shorter time-to-market. While there are many cases where other molding processes are required, don't discount the flexibility of thermoforming! Send us your requirement, and we'll advise if thermoforming is a fit for your application. Refer to this page for a detailed comparison of thermoforming and injection molding.
We are capable of forming many different materials, from sheets up to 9 feet x 5 feet in size, and up to 3/8" thick.
You can choose from a wide range of plastics to precisely meet your job requirement. Just few of these materials are:
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Custom material options include:
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Once formed, we can also precision CNC trim the parts. We fabricate trim fixtures in-house to ensure that we provide you with the best part possible. Trimming operations include 5-axis trimming of outer edges, access and instrumentation holes, drilled mounting holes, ventillation slots, and virtually anything else you can imagine.
Beyond the thermofoming and trimming operations, we also offer custom machining, bending, assembly, and packaging services.
If you're considering injection molding for your part, check here first.
