It is rare that new developments in engineering are made from nothing. Usually things are developed from existing materials or techniques and it is only later that people begin to question this adaptation and look for new ways to employ these new ideas.
A good example of this is the introduction of plastics after the Second World War. Initially it was seen as a way to produce a cheap alternative to materials such as wood or metal. These had been used for hundreds of years to produce a wide range of products including high quality and high value pieces. The trouble was it takes a lot of machining to produce most things from them and so the unit prices are high. With the introduction of injection moulding techniques a much quicker and cheaper way of producing these items was found.
In the beginning the plastic items were made to look like their more expensive counterparts and so they became seen as a poor cheap alternative. The term ‘plastic looking’ was seen as derogatory. It did not take long however before people stopped looking on plastic as an alternative to traditional materials but as a valuable material in its own right with its own unique properties. This led to an explosion of designs in the 1960’s specifically using plastic.
This was also true in the engineering world where things had been traditionally fastened together with nuts and bolts. Whilst these are still widely used and are now also manufactured in nylon there are now unique plastic fasteners that use plastics unique properties.
These plastic fasteners use the fact that unlike wood and metal plastic has a degree of flexibility. Plastic fasteners come in two parts which are simply pushed together through the work piece, griping tightly. At Bluemay we manufacture a range of these special plastic fasteners as well as tradition plastic nuts and bolts.