HDPE Rod or to give it its full name, High Density Polyethylene Rod is one of the general purpose engineering plastics that has become a very popular material.

HDPE Rod All round Performer
We wouldn't say HDPE Rod is fantastic at anything but its very good at a lot of things and its the combination which makes it a strong performer.

HDPE Rod is great for wear resistance
HDPE Rod is very good for wear or abrasion resistance, in applications where the load is not huge; HDPE will resist wear very well. If you try and file HDPE Rod with all but the roughest files, the file just seems to slide across without removing any material.

Low friction HDPE rod
HDPE Rod also offers pretty low friction, which when used in bearings or rollers are always an advantage. HDPE is also pretty lightweight and a key feature which is universally recognised as the fact that its relatively inexpensive, which means that HDPE can save you money.

What are any disadvantages of HDPE Rod?
There are however some, what some may describe as drawbacks which may or may not come into play for certain applications and one of them is the fact hat HDPE Rod is very difficult to bond using adhesives. Although adhesive specialists advise us it can be bonded, they describe it as difficult at best and maybe the answer in this instance would be to weld HDPE using purpose designed welding equipment. A further drawback could be that its not the hardest engineering plastic, its not particularly soft but relative to some other plastics, HDPE Rod isn't the hardest. An indication would be that if you had strong nails and pressed really hard, you could cause a mark.

The potential drawbacks could also be described as advantages in applications where the lack of adhesion is what’s required or where a component is required to almost sacrificial as in the case of a drift.

Food applications and HDPE Rod
HDPE Rod is often found in the food production environment as the natural grade is food compatible, it may be good for use as a rolling pin as food debris would find it difficult to adhere to the slightly waxy feel surface.

A quick round-up for HDPE Rod
So, if your looking for a material that is economical, has low friction and good abrasion resistance, is also easy to machine but doesn't involve extreme loads or high impact resistance, then HDPE Rod would probably be worth investigating further.

Please call or email our technical team if we can be of further assistance. Direct Plastics have a huge stock of the entire range of HDPE Rod and are set up to dispatch whatever engineering plastics you need immediately.