Now You Can Injection Mold Unpainted Automotive Soft Skins

摘要

There's a new way to make soft skins for automotive interior door panels, instrument panels, and consoles that is said to save considerable cost and weight compared with current methods such as slush molding or injection molding of TPV skins. Kraton Corp., Houston (kraton.com) has developed new high-flow SEBS TPE materials that make it possible to injection mold ultra-thin (0.8-1 mm), lightweight soft skins that need no painting. These materials can be processed on existing standard equipment and are suitable for back-foaming or overmolding onto rigid PP substrates.