Arrowhead’s Eaton facility, the home of our thermoformed plastic products division, has three single station shuttle machines that can form parts up to 120” by 72” and three rotary vacuum forming machines that can form parts up to 108” by 108”. In addition, the plant has (3) 5-Axis CNC routers with the largest have a cutting envelope of 120” by 60” X 48”.
Although Arrowhead does produce a few proprietary plastic parts, the majority of our business is custom thermoformed plastic parts that are built to our customer’s specifications. In addition to standard thermoforming (aka vacuum forming), we can utilize other production processes such as plug assist thermoforming, drape forming (no vacuum utilized), plunge forming, thermoforming with a predraw box, strip heating and bending, vinyl wrapping and stamping. Some of our secondary processing abilities include: hand routing, trimming, ultrasonic welding, adhesive bonding, shearing, assembly, CAD modeling, thermoform tooling modification, eco-tool production (composite thermoform tooling alternative to aluminum tooling that can be run on a rotary thermoformer), reverse engineering, laser scanning, precision measuring with a FARO arm, and in-house pattern and mold making.
The plastic thermoforming division of Arrowhead has served clients in numerous industries such as Aeronautics, Defense, Food Service, Automotive, Recreational, Retail, Transportation and Safety, agricultural, heavy truck and bus, construction, RV, advertising (POP displays) and many others. This diversified customer base enables us to keep up to date on current technologies and trends in many different markets and industries.
Our plastic thermoforming division primarily serves businesses in the Midwest. However, Arrowhead also has customers in Florida, Alabama, California, Arizona, New Hampshire and everywhere in between.
With an increase in customers and industries comes an increase in demand for us to supply parts made from many different types of thermoplastics. Arrowhead has successfully thermoformed numerous types of plastic sheets including the following polymers:
ABS – Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (Magnum, Cycolac, Abex)
PVC – Polyvinyl Chloride (Vintec, GEON)
PC – Polycarbonate (Lexan, Makrolon)
ABS/PC – A blend of ABS and Polycarbonate (Pulse 830)
HDPE – High Density Polyethylene (C-TEAK)
HMWHDPE – High Molecular Weight High Density Polyethylene (TIVAR)
PS – Polystyrene
Acrylic – Extruded and Cell-Cast (Plexiglas, Acrylite)
PVC/Acrylic – Polyvinyl Chloride mixed with Acrylic (Kydex, Royalite)
PEI – Polyetherimide (Ultem)
TPO – Thermoplastic Olefin (Solvay)
PP – Polypropylene (perforated and standard)
PETG – Polyethylene Terephathalate Glycol Modified (Spectar, VIVAK)
Cross-linked foam