Acetal is easy to machine
Acetal Rod is probably our best machining engineering plastic. It makes the machining process very easy by chipping rather than creating a continuous length of swarf that often wraps around tooling. By using very sharp cutting tools that are designed similar to smoothing tools, Acetal Rod can be machined to an outstanding surface finish with machining marks barely visible.

Acetal rod needs less de-burring
Another advantage of Acetal Rod is the lack of burrs after machining. This eliminates the often time consuming process of de-burring components which ultimately saves time and money as well as this tedious process.

Acetal is great for CNC Machines
Acetal Rod lends itself incredibly well to high speed automated machining processes such as CNC lathes. It means you can load your material in at one end and rely on lovely finished machined parts at the other with very little manual input.

Low Moisture Absorption of Acetal rod
Another advantage is that it absorbs very little moisture which means that components can be machined more accurately and can be relied upon to keep their tolerances and not expand no matter what the conditions. This means that for components that are expected to work in damp or wet conditions, Acetal Rod would provide the ideal choice.

Acetal Rod for food applications
Acetal Rod is excellent for any application where food is involved. Acetal is totally food safe as a result of its minimal moisture absorption and therefore bacteria absorption. Many companies within the food industry will often specify that their components or items are machined from Acetal and is a great reason why we have Blue Acetal Rod in stock. Blue Acetal is often particularly specified because if a component gets damaged or broken, any debris can be easily spotted in a visual inspection without losing the whole batch.

Acetal Rod is very slippy
Another great feature is that Acetal Rod is described as being very slippy. What this means is that components will have very low friction characteristics as well as minimal initial stick. This is good for when small rotating components that need to be started very smoothly during their service, Acetal will not require any great load applied to initially create movement which often creates jerking which is a real issue in micro components.

Acetal Rod Colours
Currently the bulk of Acetal Rod is manufactured in Natural / White in colour or Black which can look better when used in an industrial environment.  But as we mentioned, we now have blue Acetal in stock and are able to obtain both red and green Acetal rod to order with a very quick delivery.