For more than 70 years, Ray Products has built a reputation as a premier provider of pressure formed plastic parts. With a commitment to constantly upgrade our facilities with the highest quality equipment and latest technology, today we can manufacture custom plastic parts using our advanced, heavy-gauge pressure forming process, delivering the highest quality in the business while reducing tooling costs and turnaround times. With our experience, Ray Products will help guide what pressure forming is, the advantages of pressure forming, and what makes Ray Products a complete partner for your next project.
With the ability to combine multiple custom components into a single, seamless product, along with incredible cost-effective processing and the ability to replace fiberglass and steel, large part thermoforming opens up new vistas for manufacturing in volumes ranging from hundreds to thousands. No matter what the industry—transportation and mass transit, farming and agriculture, green energy, waste and water management, medical devices, or more—large part thermoforming can redefine what is possible for your business.
#1 – Large Part Thermoforming is Significantly More Cost-effective than Steel or Fiberglass Fabrication
The technology behind large part thermoforming has grown so efficient in recent years that many materials that once necessitated either fiberglass, steel, or a combination of multiple parts can now be streamlined into one cost-effective thermoformed plastic part. Let us pass on this savings to you. Large part thermoforming allows for tremendous efficiency as it transforms many high-dollar parts into one large, single, rigid and lightweight thermoformed plastic part.
#2 – You Have the Same Freedom of Material Choice with Large Part Thermoforming
Just as you might do with other smaller-scale thermoformed parts, large part thermoforming likewise allows you to choose the material type (any thermoplastic) color, thickness, and finish of your plastic material. Your project is only limited by your imagination, and a 10’ x 18’ forming area! The possibilities are essentially endless as you explore the same freedom of choice in large part thermoforming, particularly as the needs of your custom plastic project grow and become more complex. As your business grows, part-to-part repeatability will become more and more important, as well.
#3 – Large Part Thermoforming Yields Superior Molded Detail and Offers Seamless Part Repeatability
Large part thermoforming is synonymous with repeatability and superior molded detail, which is what your industry demands. You care about aesthetics, reliability and repeatability, which is why large part thermoforming could be ideal for your next project. When upgrading to large part thermoforming from fiberglass or steel, better aesthetics are often the natural result, largely because the material colors and finishes deliver a large seamless part.
We haven’t even mentioned the significance of light-weight options that large part thermoforming offers your business. Whether you need to thermoform 10-feet by 18-feet or smaller, large part thermoforming can transform the possibilities for custom parts manufacturing.
Every year, Plastics News conducts a survey of North American thermoformers and ranks them by annual sales. This year, for the first time, Ray Products made the top 100.
In fact, we received special recognition in the introduction to the report for moving “up 32 spaces”. That took us from 122nd last year to a respectable 90th this year.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “What’s the big deal?” Is celebrating 90th place really worth celebrating at all?
Yes, and here’s why:
The truth is, we get excited about every plastics manufacturing project that comes into our California-based facility. Still, there are plastic pressure forming projects that stand out for our whole team.
Let us tell you about one of those.
Recently, a leading biotechnology company came to us for help creating the housing of an advanced digital pathology slide scanner.
The project demanded impressive aesthetics, incredible levels of precision, and high-performance materials. In short, it was precisely the type of pressure forming project we love.
On October 9 and 10, 2019, Ray Products will be exhibiting at D2P, Design 2 Part, Southern California conference, located at the Pasadena Convention Center. Home to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena has built a reputation as a hotbed for technological innovation, providing a great backdrop for showcasing our advanced plastic manufacturing techniques.
As an exhibitor, we’ll be showcasing and discussing an assortment of plastic parts that we’ve manufactured via our specialized vacuum forming, pressure forming and trimming technologies. We’re looking forward to sharing the benefits of thermoformed plastic solutions with attendees from Southern California and beyond. Here are a few of the processes we’ll be discussing:
If you pay close attention to manufacturing trends, you may have already seen it happening: manufacturers are discovering the benefits of pressure forming, and realizing that they can’t help but switch.
Why are they switching, and is it the right choice for you?
At Ray Products, we’ve been pressure forming plastic parts for over 70 years, and have a keen sense of the types of projects that can greatly benefit from this process. Below are the most commonly noted reasons to opt for pressure forming for your next project.
We’re thrilled to announce that Ray Products has been awarded the Gold prize at this year’s SPE Thermoforming Conference for our work on the Stratasys F370 Industrial-grade 3-D printer!
The Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE)’s annual thermoforming conference is the leading exposition where thermoformers, suppliers and clients assemble to attend workshops, discussions, and networking sessions on all things thermoforming. One of the most exciting aspects of the conference is its contest, which considers submissions from thermoformers all over the country across several manufacturing categories.
On April 1, 1949, Allen Ray and his wife, Peggy, opened the doors of Ray Products in Alhambra. At the time, Ray Products was a 1,000 sq. ft. custom fabrication shop that produced plastic baby bassinets. Why plastic baby bassinets? Allen had posited—correctly, as it turns out—that clear plastic bassinets would make it easier for hospital staff to monitor many newborn babies at once.
If Allen and Peggy came back today, they might be surprised by what Ray Products has become over the last seven decades. Almost 50 of their original workshops could fit in our current 48,000 sq. ft. manufacturing space in Ontario. I can’t imagine what they’d think of our 6-axis robotic trimmers, but I know they’d appreciate our state-of-the-art thermoforming equipment that enables us to produce high-quality, customized plastic parts used worldwide in industries like medical devices, transportation, green energy, automotive, building and construction, and recreational equipment.
I’m also confident they’d recognize the qualities that earned them success all those decades ago: innovation, perseverance, and a fierce commitment to doing things the right way. They’d see and deeply appreciate employees who give us their best—staying with us for 10, 20 and sometimes even 50 years. They’d be delighted to discover how many of our customers and suppliers know the value of a handshake, know quality when they see it, and make a point to invest in our country by seeking out domestic manufacturing partners like us.
I’m also pretty certain they’d be unspeakably proud. After all, 70 years for a small, family-owned business is no small feat. And while good old-fashioned luck certainly played a role, I genuinely believe our success is no accident. We owe this milestone to:
- Allen and Peggy Ray, who founded this company with the values that still propel us today.
- Their son Bruce, who led the company through 20 years of incredible growth with determination and gumption.
- The dedicated employees who have given us their time, talent and hard work.
- The customers and partners who have given us the opportunity to earn—and keep—their trust and support.
- A commitment to innovation and a near-pathological obsession with getting it right (or so I’m told).
Here’s to the next 70.
Brian Ray
President
Last month, the Society of Plastics Engineers’ held their annual Thermoforming Conference, where clients, vendors and industry leaders come together for innovative and informative thermoforming workshops and sessions.
One of the best parts of the event is the Parts Competition, which showcases the latest advances in thermoforming design and applications. The best parts receive awards, and we were thrilled to win a silver award this year for a multi-part medical device we made for a client in southern California.
A bit more about the (award-winning, sorry we had to) part:
After developing prototypes that used urethane casting to create the enclosure panels, a medical device manufacturer client was ready to move to mid-scale production. But they quickly realized that the urethane casting process would mean limited manufacturing capacity, high cost per part and could yield issues with consistency from part to part. We had a solution: pressure forming.
By switching from urethane casting to pressure forming, our client was able to significantly lower costs, improve manufacturing speed, increase durability and guarantee part-to-part repeatability while simultaneously planning for future increases in demand and capacity.
We worked closely with the client to reduce the total number of losses, adding in undercut features for rigidity and improved fit, and making other alterations to lower manufacturing and assembly costs and improving aesthetics.
We’re grateful for the recognition (including the shout out in Plastics News) and are gunning for the gold next year!