Castle Industries Inc. of California has added a plastics process to its specialized design and precision sheet-metal fabrication of aircraft parts.
Castle makes the tooling and lamination and trim in Ontario and subcontracts the vacuum forming to an unidentified vendor.
``We trim the formed components and assemble the close-out panels,'' said Eldon Swanson, Castle's president.
In March, Castle began shipping vacuum formed assemblies and individual parts, typically made of 0.06-inch-thick ultrahigh-impact Kydex 100 acrylic/ PVC alloy.
Castle uses a multiaxis computer numerically controlled router to make the wooden tool. Once vacuum formed, panels and stiffeners are trimmed and laminated to form a strong interior panel for applications requiring custom-shaped decoration.
Castle machines a range of engineering thermoplastics as well as metals for commercial and military aerospace applications.
Castle employs 41 at its 42,500- square-foot plant. It is a unit of M.C. Gill Corp. of El Monte, Calif.
