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Plastic
is one of the most popular materials for toys, especially for scaled action
figures. As far as manufacturing is concerned, one should keep in mind
that plastic requires high temperature and
pressure to be shaped or formed, which means expensive mold and machine
are required. Indeed, tooling (mold) is one of the important, if not
most, elements in plastic production. To help off set the tooling costs and other fixed costs,
therefore, certain quantity level is necessary.
Since it's not likely you would have the production scale as that of Mattel or Hasbro,
however, you should avoid competing with them on their own
turf; instead, try to be unique, customizing, and detailed. Other factors
that affect costs include:
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Size. Generally, the larger size, the more
costly, as more material, larger mold and packaging are needed; one
exception is tiny parts may make production difficult
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Details. Details require precise tooling, casting,
polishing, and painting
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Articulations/functioning. Articulations mean more
separate parts and joints in production; function means additional
details
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Colors. Plastic product is usually colored by molds
(spray painting, pad printing, or decaling), one pattern or color at a
time; so simple design is more favorable than complex design. In
particular, one should try to avoid large multi-color pattern,
thin-long lines, fragmented color patterns, transient (fading) colors,
as well as colors on uneven surface.
There are two basic methods
for casting, i.e., injection molding and roto-casting. The main
difference between the two is that roto-casting uses one-piece mold, which
results in no-seam surface, while injection molding uses two or
more-piece molds, which leaves mold seams. One should understand,
though, that not all designs can be cast by roto-casting; in fact,
this method is very limited to certain designs only, those allow hollow inside, as it
requires certain cavity for the part to be pulled out from molding.
You may learn more by clicking here.
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