Need Help With Troubleshooting a Unique Plastic Wine Cup

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I am in the development stage for a few unique plastic cup products. I need help troubleshooting my design. If anybody can help, it would be much appreciated. For example, I do not know what type of molding I need to use for each component of the plastic cup products I designed (i.e., injection molding, blow molding, etc.). I have a few renderings of the products if someone wants to look at the designs and see if they can help.
Reply:Welcome to the forum. This is predominately A welding forum but there is a a few crossover topics here and there. I used to work in injection molding.  I do know a little about the process and how things are done. A fundamental part, is how much do you have to spend, to how many cups you want to build/sell. Cups are mostly injection molded. now with that being said there are exceptions to the rule. Design typically dictates the material(s), intern also dictates how the mold is built and of what material itself. PP (propylene) is a pretty common material, easily worked and there are plenty of manufactures. Alot of cheap throw away cup are polystyrene and are vacuum formed, and produced on a high volume process or with robots( or in China...nuf said). Some cups have many parts, like a internal cup part(for the drink), an outer part(to form an insulation space) and sometimes a handle.Many parts usually mean many different molds. A mold with all or more than one type of part(especially of different weights) for the item can cause the molder problems to make a satisfactory part or product due to an imbalance in the mold cavity's. So keep in mind if the end product has many parts and is complicated (having undercuts for snaps or mech. fastening, unique textures, molded in designs ect. ) , that will potentially need several molds, and that will drive up the price. In the shop I worked in, we had the molds made outside, the costs were from several 1000's to 10K plus on a few. We were a custom molder and we did pretty much any thing but on a smaller production scale. So things to think on are simplicity and funding with a plan of what to do with the end product(ie a marketing plan). I hope this will help.Last edited by mckutzy; 04-20-2012 at 12:47 AM.
Reply:I always thougt the RED SOLO cup was the end all for plastic beverage drinking containers.  I even heard a song written in its honor.  I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard it.What type of plastic cup are you planning to make?  Stemmed?