Hampel Corp. is an award winning ISO 9001: 2008 certified plastics manufacturing firm specializing in medium to heavy gauge thermoforming. Whatever your technical requirements are, Hampel has the expertise and flexibility to work with you.
With over 30 years of experience and a cutting edge 160,000 square foot facility, equipped with the latest equipment and technologies, Hampel has the resources to meet your needs. Beginning with tool design and development, following through with project management, manufacturing, logistics and final delivery of finished parts, Hampel has the expertise and technological capabilities to be your thermoforming resource.
Areas of Expertise:
Vacuum Forming
Vacuum forming is the basic process of evacuating the air between a heated sheet of plastic and the mold. Most molds are aluminum castings providing low tooling costs and design flexibility to produce common parts. Truck bedliners, belt shields and motorcycle fairings are just a few of many applications.
Pressure Forming
Pressure forming is the application of pressure to the backside of a thermoformable sheet of material. Additional force is then applied, above what vacuum can provide, to enable the material to conform very precisely to the mold surface. This enables parts to retain the detailed appearance of an injection-molded part, but at significantly lower tooling costs. Detailed texture, logos and undercuts can be easily incorporated into a part with the pressure forming process.
Twin Sheet
Twin sheet forming provides hollow or structurally sound parts with many advantages over other processes such as blow molding or rotational molding. Twin sheet parts can be prototyped off temporary patterns prior to producing production tooling, thus allowing a design to be tested with an actual part. Twinsheet forming allows the ability to encapsulate parts or components for attachments or insulating properties. Unlike other processes, twin sheet forming also allows the ability to produce a part with different colors on each side.
Deep Draw / Large Parts
Hampel has the ability to produce parts up to 70” deep. When the ratio of the area of the fully molded part is more than two times that of the area of the flat unmolded sheet, the part is defined as deep draw. For example, at a 2:1 ratio, a 1⁄4” starting gauge sheet will yield a finished nominal part thickness of 1/8”. Although Hampel produces many deep draw parts, the best example of this process is Hampel’s own Calf-Tel brand of calf housing, which reflects an actual 3:1 draw ratio. Hampel has the ability to form large parts up to 7’ x 11’ x 70” deep.
Cosmetic Parts
With increased customer requirements for finished parts with “class A” or cosmetic appearances, Hampel has made producing cosmetic parts a core competency. The ability to process cosmetic materials requires special forming, trimming and handling techniques. These specialized capabilities results in a finished part supplied to the customer eliminating the need for painting and other secondary processes while providing surfaces that are both durable and weatherable.
Engineering & Design
Hampel has the expertise to provide engineering solutions for the most complex thermoforming applications possible. Whether you require turnkey engineering and design solutions, project management or engineering support, Hampel engineers and designers will work with you.
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Material Expertise
Numerous materials are available such as ABS, HIPS and HMWPE to meet the requirements of almost about any application. In addition to these basic materials, additional engineered resins consisting of additives, fillers or multi-layer exist to meet even more stringent application requirements. Hampel has experience and capability to work with nearly all thermoformable materials and the expertise to provide you with the right material recommendation for your project.
Tooling
Patterns and Prototypes
A pattern is the first step in the tool construction phase after a design or model has been determined. The pattern can also be utilized to produce prototypes for design and material validation. This is the point at which modifications can be incorporated prior to producing a production tool. Most patterns are produced from a special pattern wood or ren-board type product enabling ease of change. Hampel provides the expertise to facilitate design changes via pro-e models or manually to ensure the outcome is a quality part design for cost effective manufacturing.
Tooling / Molds
To ensure dimensionally consistent and stable parts, Hampel utilizes temperature controlled aluminum molds of only the highest quality. Hampel incorporates many years of experience in tooling design resulting in the ability to produce unique parts requiring advanced technical and engineering expertise. Many tools have complex assists, core pulls or moveable inserts allowing for the forming of complex shapes. Hampel ensures optimal production efficiency by taking all aspects of the final product in mind.
Fixtures
Hampel has the ability to design and build various secondary fixtures to accommodate part tolerance and assembly requirements. With each part requirement being unique, cooling, trimming and assembly fixtures are designed to efficiently process parts within Hampel’s manufacturing cells utilizing the latest technology in forming and automated trimming.
Value Added — Secondary Operations
Hampel also offers a variety of value added secondary operations ranging from assembly, adhesive bonding to logistics. These additional services have proven to be invaluable to Hampel’s competitive advantage by allowing customers to depend on Hampel as a full solution, turnkey provider. For more details and a representative list of these Value Added capabilities and resources see Value Added — Secondary Operations.
