where to get actual plastic?

[homebrew]

Right on. I'd definitely pay your cost in shipping or whatever you'd ask.

 

[ManU]

Another engineer buddy of mine that plays a little disc golf

I imagine that people would play with different plastics and different harnesses' to achieve the type of disk they want. And it would be different for different disk (i.e. putter or driver). There is Acrylic, Nylon, Acetal-Delrin, teflon, and polycarbonate (more than that, but prob not typical for disk golf). I would imagine any one of these would work fine, but the best thing to do is to reverse engineer. Take a disk and measure the diameter, thickness and take its weight then find the density. Then compare that to other plastics. Better yet, model the disk as exact as you can in solid works, then enter in different densities of plastics you can buy on the internet to get a weight, then compare that to a disk you own, voila!!

I understood from a thread hidden somewhere on this forum that the Champ/Z plastic was nylon

 

[JHern]

Man, I'd love to be able to make my own discs! Put me down for one of these.

Plastics are typically formed by polymers, or chains of molecules that link together. The polymers grow chains and link around one another in a big bundle, which makes it stronger. There are some additives that are sometimes put in the plastic before it sets that helps to increase the strength of the plastic. Some of these are toxic, but mostly unregulated.

 

[Ryan C]

Did I miss somewhere how he's going to actually inject the plastic into his molds?

Mold making is a seriously hard enterprise. I don't actually make the molds where I work, but I know the guys who do, obviously, and its not very simple. If you were to buy a mold from a tool maker, it would probably run you in the $10k-30k region, or higher, depending on the complexity of the part. For a part as large as a disc, probably closer to the top end of that scale.

To the OP, are you an experienced mold maker? Did you talk to someone who is?

As for the type of plastic, I would probably say polyurethane, but obviously it varies. There are dozens of types of polyurethane alone. I wish you luck, but if you are not experienced in plastic injection molding, this may turn out to be really frustrating, or just plain impossible.

If you have any questions on the process, I'll probably be able to help a bit, and I certainly know people who have worked in the plastic business way longer than I've been alive.

 

[Marmoset]

I understood from a thread hidden somewhere on this forum that the Champ/Z plastic was nylon

Nope. Its a Urethane.

 

[DaRoc]

I know you can get plastic pellets from DuPont. I think thats how you spell it.

 

[robertbonson]

"There are formulas that we use when, for example, shooting for a 4 (SuperSoft) and within in each class there is at least 1 polymer that is proprietary to that particular class. A Medium has a percentage of a talc-filled polypropylene (PP), a soft has a percentage of a regular PP, the SuperSoft has no PP and a Super-Stupid-Soft has no PP and a soft rubber thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPV) or thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) less than 70 A shore"

from this article, which you may find useful.. also this cool picture was included.
http://www.gdstour.com/gateway_putter_flexibility.php

 

[robertbonson]

and the article, which i forgot to include..

http://www.gdstour.com/gateway_putter_flexibility.php

 

[707cnash1]

thank you for this info, Ive got my drawing made ( anybody got maya? ill post a link of my drawings so if you guys wanna tweak with the design feel free to) to the specifications that I want, ive moddified the boss in 2 forms, 1 being real domey, the other very flat, I also made a change to the rim, its a 1/16th smaller all the way around, I mainly made it for people who struggle with the boss cause of there small hands at least thats what some people I know say, but other than that im lookin good to go. So hears the bad part, Its gonna cost me no matter what, I dont really care about spending money cause the payoff will be worth it, I found a guy out here in benicia who has all the equipment that I need to make this happen, Its just he wants to see my drawings first and then were gonna decide on a good choice of plastic, Im thinkin theres gonna be more than 3 types, hes got a ton to choose from and im taking in all the info I get from here and giving it to him, so by the end of next month I should have about 15 or so and thats all I need. If for some reason I can only get a few then Ill just send it out to some people and hopefully everybody can pass it around like a karma disc. and yes jesse, 707's always come first. Ill also have that file up by the weekend feel free to mess with it and put in your two cents and for those who have autocad or something that can read dxf and dwg files ill post a link for that as well. More to come, thanks to everybody for the input!!!

"There are formulas that we use when, for example, shooting for a 4 (SuperSoft) and within in each class there is at least 1 polymer that is proprietary to that particular class. A Medium has a percentage of a talc-filled polypropylene (PP), a soft has a percentage of a regular PP, the SuperSoft has no PP and a Super-Stupid-Soft has no PP and a soft rubber thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPV) or thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) less than 70 A shore"

from this article, which you may find useful.. also this cool picture was included.
http://www.gdstour.com/gateway_putter_flexibility.php

 

[rooster]

Wether I get to try one of your discs is no consequence to me(I really would like to though). Let me know what plastics you end up using. That's the part I'm really interested in.

 

[mpalcic]

id love to get me some free discs. but i'll be down for paying for shipping. just let me know!

 

[707cnash1]

for sure man, ive got a meeting with the guy im using on tuesday and ill shoot you a pm or something to let you know what we decided on and maybe you could give me some ideas on top of that.

Wether I get to try one of your discs is no consequence to me(I really would like to though). Let me know what plastics you end up using. That's the part I'm really interested in.

 

[TheDrake52]

For once a benefit to living in Napa. I would love to try your discs at skyline.

 

[707cnash1]

what napa huh? skyline is the hardest course ive ever played hands down. I just had a meeting yesterday with a plastic company call gibbs and he was kinda of an asshole so Ive got another one with a diffrent company so things are fallin in place as of now so of course locals get first : ) but Im gonna update this forum tommorow when I get some more info.

For once a benefit to living in Napa. I would love to try your discs at skyline.

 

[TheDrake52]

Skyline can be very unforgiving. If its not the dreaded rolls out there then its the waist high weeds and stickers that eat discs up to never be seen again. Although i would have to say that only playing for a year, skyline was a great course for me to learn on. Some might say that it is too technical for a beginner but it sorta forced me to use a lot of control instead of just chucking the disc all willy nilly like. Although it is nice to go out to a park like stafford once in a while to work on throwing the bombs.