Helping OEMs and Designers Get Their Custom Plastic Products to Market
Structural Foam Molding is a custom plastics molder focusing on low-pressure injection molding. With production facilities in Ohio, Indiana, and Georgia, we’re proud to offer high-quality, American-made plastic products – alongside our excellent customer service.
Leveraging our experience, we focus on innovation and process enhancement in plastic molding, simultaneously minimizing costs and maximizing quality. Working with our customers to create an exceptional end product is our top priority.
Leaders in Low-Pressure Structural Foam Technologies
Access to over a century’s worth of combined experience, more than one million square feet of facilities, and nearly 40 presses of all shapes and sizes – Structural Foam Molding has the resources and expertise to deliver on your plastic injection molding needs!
We have experience molding many different types of materials, but we’re especially proud of the over 50 millions pounds of recycled materials we molded last year!
In addition to our product development and consulting abilities, what else do we offer?
- A wide variety of multi-nozzle injection machines
- Production of parts weighing up to 325 pounds
- U.S.-based manufacturing – 100% American-made!
- A variety of post-production options (drop ship, assembly, warehouse, etc.)
- Aluminum tooling
- Automation
Recent Blog Posts
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Structural Foam as a Precast Concrete Alternative for Large Parts
The Weight Problem at Scale At small sizes & small quantities, concrete is hard to beat. It’s durable, cheap, & light enough for one or two people to handle without special equipment. For compact parts like utility enclosures, equipment housings, & drainage structures, concrete works. Scale those same parts up in size or quantity &…
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Controlling the Core: A Technical Look at the Gas-Assist Injection Molding Process
When a mechanical engineer needs to design a large, structural plastic part with a demanding cosmetic surface, they usually run into a wall. Traditional injection molding demands uniform wall thicknesses—usually maxing out around 4mm. Go any thicker and you get sink marks, internal voids, warp, and cycle times that drive up your piece price. To…
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How to Transition from Sourcing to Purchasing Without Losing Momentum
I sit on the supplier side of the table. I work with sourcing teams and buyers every day as a custom plastics supplier, and I’ve gotten a front-row seat to how companies handle this transition, both the ones who do it well and the ones who don’t. I’ve also learned a lot from the sourcing…
Areas of Specialization
What You Can Expect
Shaping Solutions, Step by Step
Partner
We begin by understanding your concept design and project needs.
Design
We create and build mold designs domestically, that are both precise and production-ready.
Manufacture
High-pressure and low-pressure molding in our Ohio, Indiana, and Georgia facilities.
Assembly & Kit
We inspect, assemble, and kit your components.
STRUCTURAL FOAM MOLDING
DESIGN GUIDE
Ready to dive into the details of manufacturing custom plastic parts with the structural foam molding process?
This 35-page guide is intended to help you identify the best manufacturing method for your structural foam components, as the ideal process is determined by your product's specific design, size, quantity, and durability requirements.
Since structural foam molding encompasses several different techniques, the included quick-reference design guidelines will also help you plan and design your products effectively.
Get all the details in this 2.4 MB PDF
Questions? We Have Answers
Evaluating structural foam molding for a current program? These are the five questions procurement and engineering teams ask most often when vetting a vendor.
Most large rigid plastic parts can be molded as designed, and our engineers provide DFM feedback on wall thickness, draft angles, and gating before tooling begins. Press capacity runs up to 8,000 tons, with a core press range of 500–6,750 tons, producing single-piece parts up to 72" × 72" × 24" and larger.
Wall thickness ranges from 0.180" (4.5 mm) to 0.500" (12.7 mm), with 0.250" (6.35 mm) as the recommended nominal for flow, strength, and manufacturability. Because structural foam is a low-pressure process, it produces lower internal stresses than high-pressure injection — yielding tighter tolerances and flatter parts on large geometries. Commercial tolerance reference for HDPE scales by part size, from ±0.045" at 10" to ±0.360" at 60", with final tolerances dependent on geometry and material.