OK, so we’ve all done our turn on exhibition stands. There you are with sore feet and just about to answer the same question for the 10th time and ‘bang’ someone asks you a great question you can’t answer! This happened to me during an event in October, I got hit with the question of the day ‘can you weld that stuff mate’?

The question came from a guy stood on the stand next to me. Fortunately for me he was friendly and working on the Telsonic Ultrasonics stand. These chaps specialize in welding thermoplastic materials, but they hadn’t tried Onyx yet, so we set about having a go.

Ultrasonic plastic welding is suitable for virtually all thermoplastics. It’s possible to perform different types of weld to suit your application (longitudinal or torsional), there’s also ultrasonic welding too, which is characterized by minimal component stress. The special advantage here is that the ultrasonic energy is directly transferred through the most diverse laminate constructions to the (inner) sealing layer. Interestingly you can also weld two different plastics together if you need to, which helps in certain assemblies.

After handing Martin Frost – the UK Sales Manager – two sacrificial parts, he set about changing tool tip and adjusted a few settings and tried his first weld. He was very close to the right settings first time and with one small adjustment ‘bingo’ it worked fine. We’d welded two of my samples together, never to come apart!

So, if any of you think plastic welding may help you in your engineering department then why not give Martin a call on 01202 697340 – he’s happy to help.