Celebrating more than 50 years in the plastics industry, McNeall Plastics continues to invest in advanced technology to further enhance its volume capabilities and deliver national and international customers machined and milled components to a consistently high level of precision.
Based in Melrose Park, New South Wales, McNeall Plastics services customers across the broadest range of industries, including mining, energy, pharmaceutical, transport, automotive, packaging, building and construction, bulk handling, foundries and many more. The company continues to looking to the future to expand on its reputation as a leading supplier of high quality engineered plastics.
Its latest acquisition is the recently commissioned Okuma Genos L3000-eMYx1000 CNC lathe, along with an OSP-P300LA controller and accessories. The new machine is already enhancing volumes and size capabilities in precision components and will allow the company to produce tooling for casting moulds in-house.
“The selection of the Okuma machine was an easy one for us as the name is known throughout the industry as one of the highest precision machine brands available,” says Josh Budd, Managing Director at McNeall Plastics. “And the technical support and training from Okuma is just outstanding.”
McNeall Plastics has the only major nylon casting facility in Australia, and has formulated and perfected AUSTLON, a robust hard-wearing nylon polymer material that is regarded as unparalleled in performance in the most demanding conditions. AUSTLON is resistant to high impact, abrasion, brittleness, vibration and ultraviolet (UV) deterioration. The product is flexible in design, easily machined and has applications in a variety of areas including the food industry, and mining and quarrying. It has higher mechanical strength than most industrial plastics, and the highest mechanical strength in cast nylons.
AUSTANE is another premium grade polyurethane specially formulated by McNeall Plastics, developed for extreme dynamic applications. It is produced by a special hot casting process, either manually or by machine to open moulds, adhering firmly to a variety of base materials. It has unsurpassed mechanical properties; resistance to abrasion and tears; excellent impact resistance; and is lightweight. AUSTANE has a wide range of applications such as materials handling, casters, paper cyclones, blades, screens, chute linings, rollers, crane buffers, valve linings, bridge bearings, process and form rollers, grippers for packaging equipment, and any component made from rubber.
McNeall Plastics also produces a wide range of Polyethylene HD, Acetal and Teflon products for machine parts, chain wear strips, chute-and-hopper liners, guide strips, cutting boards and more.
With such a diverse range of plastic materials, McNeall Plastics offers its customers a complete consultancy service, drawing on its experienced team of mechanical engineers to provide advice on suitable alternative materials, in a one-stop shop for cut-to-size and fabricated plastic parts. The design service offered by the company involves comprehensive market leading technology including 3D modelling software enabling stress loadings, clearances, tolerances and much more to meet and exceed the application requirements.
Comprehensive custom machining by the company includes CNC turning, routing, milling, spindle moulding, grinding, waterjet cutting, laser cutting and stamping.
“Today the company is focusing on its ever-expanding Australian and international client base with Australian manufactured high-quality products,” says Budd. “It is negating logistic challenges for customers with shorter lead times and fast turnarounds, and again competitively producing components being drawn back from overseas suppliers.
“The new Okuma CNC lathe is opening the door to new high and low-volume precision components for the company in areas such as aerospace, defence and medical. And our operators love the machine, with morale through the roof, marvelling at the quality of the finished product.”
Okuma Managing Director Dean McCarroll says: “Our leading-edge Okuma machines continue to enhance competitive Australian manufacturing, and it is exciting to witness many products returning to Australia for manufacture due to the expertise and skills here, along with the many logistic advantages that go with local manufacturing. There is strong evidence that McNeall Plastics, like many other Australian manufacturers, are taking products to the world market and winning.”