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On this episode of PlastChicks – The Voices of Resin – Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri host Pat Haney, Research and Development Engineer, MTD Micromolding. They discuss research and development in micro-medical plastics injection molding, challenges with super-small molding, processes for developing implant molds, working with bioabsorbables, tooling for micromolding, and MTD Micromolding's protyping pipeline.
PlastChicks – The Voices of Resin, is a plastics podcast hosted by Lynzie Nebel and Mercedes Landazuri, talking about popular plastics topics and the people inspiring the industry! This podcast is supported by the Plastics Industry Association and sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. Look for new episodes the first Friday of every month.
00;00;03;21 - 00;00;12;24
Mercedes Landazuri
If you've got a question, the Voices of Resin are here. Oh, PlastChicks.
00;00;14;04 - 00;00;17;19
Lynzie Nebel
PlastChicks is an SPE-sponsored podcast.
00;00;17;19 - 00;00;19;18
Mercedes Landazuri
Hey, Lynzie, how's it going?
00;00;19;18 - 00;00;32;18
Lynzie Nebel
I am just great. It's opening season for the NFL. They, the Bills, play L.A. and I'm very excited and all decked out in all my Bills’ gear, my kids. What?
00;00;32;18 - 00;00;35;26
Mercedes Landazuri
So what? Allentown. I know there's like a Billy Joel song.
00;00;35;26 - 00;00;39;02
Lynzie Nebel
Yes, that's what it's referring to. It's very meta.
00;00;39;02 - 00;00;42;27
Lynzie Nebel
If you think about it. It has nothing to do with the Bills’ quarterback.
00;00;42;27 - 00;01;00;22
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh, right. I think you've explained this to me before when it was a football time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always get very excited. I made a shortcut on my Siri, Billy Joel, me, please. I don't want to do it, but. But then it plays. Oh, gosh, it's going to do it.
00;01;00;22 - 00;01;10;26
Mercedes Landazuri
But it plays and then it plays My Life. Congratulations on your Allentown Buffalo Bills opening day.
00;01;10;26 - 00;01;12;15
Lynzie Nebel
It is a very good day
00;01;12;15 - 00;01;14;13
Mercedes Landazuri
And that's not at all what we're going to be talking about.
00;01;14;13 - 00;01;33;26
Lynzie Nebel
But no, this is not the PlastChicks’ take on the NFL, although maybe, maybe someday. You never know. For those of you listening at home, I'm Lynzie Nebel , and I am a upstream product quote engineer for Cytiva.
00;01;34;14 - 00;02;03;13
Mercedes Landazuri
There we go. It's about lunch time for us. And yeah, so I haven't eaten yet. I don't know if you have either, but maybe. Yeah, maybe we're playing a little bit slower. I'm Mercedes Landazuri. I am Director of Technology and Innovation for Peacock Colors and Vortex Liquid Colors and Polycompounding. We’re both involved in SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals, Society of Plastics Engineers.
00;02;03;25 - 00;02;18;20
Mercedes Landazuri
Let's, I don't know why I said it like that order but I'm on the Color and Appearance Division and Recycling Division, in the Chicago section and Lynzie is a big deal.
00;02;18;20 - 00;02;32;27
Lynzie Nebel
I guess a big deal to my children. And I'm on the Injection Molding Division. I am also on the Executive Board as the Vice President of Member Engagement. But with our powers combined, we are PlastChicks.
00;02;32;27 - 00;02;33;08
Mercedes Landazuri
PlastChicks, the Voices of Resin.
00;02;33;08 - 00;02;38;14
Lynzie Nebel
She is just staring at me like we have never done that before.
00;02;38;14 - 00;02;57;16
Mercedes Landazuri
Listen, it's hard to do when there's a lag, but yeah, we're two people who work in the plastics industry, and we met and fell deeply into friend love and decided to start a podcast to spread the good word about our industry and people in it.
00;02;57;16 - 00;03;09;04
Mercedes Landazuri
And all kinds of innovations, materials, processes. I mean, we could go on and on, and we often do. Yeah.
00;03;09;04 - 00;03;28;21
Lynzie Nebel
And you can listen to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts. Basically, if you can get a podcast we’re probably there, but also if you want to see the video version of this where Mercedes just stares at you when we say our tagline, instead of doing the tagline, like she always does it.
00;03;28;22 - 00;03;30;14
Mercedes Landazuri
So there's a lag.
00;03;30;14 - 00;03;49;21
Lynzie Nebel
There's a YouTube version of this that goes up usually about a week or two later after the episode itself comes out, and we're also on social media, all the social medias except for TicTok, even though we keep saying we're going to do one and maybe eventually we'll get one, just as TikTok itself.
00;03;49;21 - 00;03;55;12
Mercedes Landazuri
Right? Well, didn’t you create a TikTok for us or like you accidentally did, you were excited about it, and then...
00;03;55;12 - 00;04;01;02
Lynzie Nebel
I have the, I have a tag or the name, but there is nothing on it.
00;04;01;02 - 00;04;05;26
Mercedes Landazuri
Well, you know, I mean, that was like how we started our podcast. We came up with a name.
00;04;05;26 - 00;04;08;01
Lynzie Nebel
Name first content later. That's all that matters.
00;04;08;01 - 00;04;15;24
Mercedes Landazuri
I still really love. Good morning, amorphous materials. I think that we're going to have to do some kind of like morning show at some point, maybe.
00;04;16;11 - 00;04;17;04
Lynzie Nebel
Well, yeah. I mean, you never know.
00;04;17;04 - 00;04;33;05
Mercedes Landazuri
But enough about us. Hello. We haven't forgotten about you, Patrick, so. Thanks so much for joining us. This is Pat Haney, Research and Development Engineer at MTD Micromolding.
00;04;33;16 - 00;04;43;22
Pat Haney
Yeah, hello. Hello. First podcast I’ve ever done, so excited about it, and it’s also the first time hearing about Lynzie's TikTok. So I'm kind of maybe probably scared of that.
00;04;44;05 - 00;04;57;15
Lynzie Nebel
The first time a lot of people are hearing about the TIkTok, so Pat, tell us a little bit about yourself, tell us a little bit about MTD. Let's get the intro stuff taken care of.
00;04;57;15 - 00;05;32;02
Pat Haney
Yeah, yeah. That's the hard part, right? Sure. So I went to Penn State Behrend originally when I started my plastics career for plastics engineering. And you know, after stepping through that program, I think I started that program and in 2012 and stepping through that program, I decided to take the co op route. And when I was an upperclassman, I went to New England, to Vermont, to Husky for a little while and eventually found my way to Massachusetts too, and MTD Micromolding.
00;05;32;02 - 00;05;51;04
Pat Haney
So through that career path, I started to take an interest in research and development more and more. And, you know, I think my energy and my personality and my interest married very well with MTD and we ended up getting a good relationship.
00;05;51;04 - 00;05;53;17
Pat Haney
So I actually...
00;05;53;17 - 00;05;56;10
Lynzie Nebel
Knowing you personally, you are a curious son of a gun.
00;05;56;22 - 00;05;58;22
Pat Haney
Yeah, yeah. That's an interesting way to put it.
00;05;58;22 - 00;06;02;19
Pat Haney
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots. A big personality, some people might say.
00;06;02;19 - 00;06;38;19
Pat Haney
Sometimes, but so yeah, I got a.good relationship with MTD out of the gate there and ended up signing a job before I even graduated. So the first official internal research and development project for MTD also identified as my senior project in college. So I was, you can kind of think of me at the time as a liaison between Penn State Behrend and MTD. So we started to do a lot of micro molding R&D, because we noticed that there's a lot of crazy phenomena that happens in micro molding.
00;06;39;04 - 00;06;54;26
Pat Haney
And you know, fast forward to 2022 now and I'm doing it full time out here at MTD, and it's a great time. It's a super unique environment and position. I don't know of any other ones like it and I think that's why I like it so much.
00;06;54;26 - 00;06;59;15
Mercedes Landazuri
So what was it? How is it how is it unique? How is it different?
00;06;59;23 - 00;07;29;03
Pat Haney
Well. I think first and foremost, MTD is a CDM or a contract manufacturer. So usually those companies are just hired to make the products of other larger OEMs and they kind of do a job and do it well. And then that's that. But for a CDM to have internal research and development, the kind of the question is or the question that crops up is, what does that even mean for a CDM?
00;07;29;03 - 00;07;59;09
Pat Haney
What do you have to develop research as opposed to just doing jobs? And yeah, it's unique because it's, we're a CDM, but it's basically a non direct revenue generating position, and it's basically an entire branch of engineering that the company invests in quite a bit. And I think it's somewhere at least 10% a year into internal research and development because all sorts of things go crazy when you go super small.
00;07;59;09 - 00;08;23;11
Pat Haney
You know, non-Newtonian fluids basically stop acting like non-Newtonian fluid should act or how we expect them to act. So shear thinning is different, crystalline formation is different, the list goes on. And because of that, there's a lot of crazy things that end up happening and crazy phenomena that happen, where you go, Okay, well, that shouldn't happen. Nobody expected that to happen, but it happens all the time.
00;08;23;11 - 00;08;41;03
Pat Haney
So essentially my job in a large capacity is to understand that phenomena and either figure out how to control it or understand it or prevent it, whatever it might be, so that plastics become predictable and manageable again, right? So yeah.
00;08;41;24 - 00;09;00;07
Lynzie Nebel
And MTD takes it one step further where you're not just doing micro, but you're doing micro medical. So what, what kind of extra restraints does that put on you guys as molders to have to fall into both those very strict categories?
00;09;00;07 - 00;09;01;05
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh my goodness.
00;09;02;11 - 00;09;40;20
Pat Haney
Yeah. I mean, I think when it comes, yeah. So we, not only do we do where, we are 100% medical first, first of all, but beyond that, I think something around 80% of the stuff that we make are implantables. So there's pretty much the strictest criteria that you can possibly have on plastics injection molding in terms of, you know, not only does it have to fit the drawing, but you start getting concerned with like what happens if the residual monomer count is too high in the molded product, because you end up having like very reactive compounds that are going to be implanted in soft tissue.
00;09;41;00 - 00;10;03;17
Pat Haney
So that could be an issue. So that's, I guess that's again, we're kind of elaborating on why the position is unique and why it's also needed to be successful to the degree that we are. So, you know, not only do we have the molding presses, but we build all our molds here, and we do all the molding here and the metrology here.
00;10;03;17 - 00;10;41;12
Pat Haney
But we have a bunch of analytical characterization stuff, too. So, you know, we do DSC testing here. We have gas chromatography capabilities, we have CT scanners, we do intrinsic viscosity testing. So we monitor molecular weight loss throughout the, you know, all these things where we can not only use conventional metrology to analyze, part quote unquote part quality, but we can also basically analyze the polymer matrix too, because the preservation of the materials so severe to the application that it needs to do, right.
00;10;41;12 - 00;11;02;25
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah. And you know, so, you know, you're talking about all these all these extra things you have to do within just regular molding, whereas, you know, there's some places where you literally just get to dump material, press the button, and even if the process isn't quite the same, you're probably going to be fine.
00;11;03;29 - 00;11;04;22
Pat Haney
Flowerpots.
00;11;04;24 - 00;11;32;12
Lynzie Nebel
Right? Like making color chips, for example. What, you know, you talked about your position kind of being unique, and it being a branch of the company. It's not necessarily like directly tied into the active projects like the active customer project. They're going on what is like an example of what you do on a day, like what kind of stuff comes across your plate?
00;11;32;12 - 00;11;36;15
Lynzie Nebel
Where do you spend your time besides lunch?
00;11;37;23 - 00;11;38;16
Pat Haney
Well, food is.
00;11;38;28 - 00;11;39;27
Mercedes Landazuri
15 minutes on.
00;11;40;02 - 00;12;06;10
Pat Haney
Yeah, that's a big part of it, as some people here, there's probably every 2 hours. You know, there's always something I have in the fridge or something. But yeah, the day to day is interesting because it varies like crazy. Sometimes, there, I'll go weeks and weeks where you know, I'm doing. I will be working on a customer project, but that doesn't mean that every new project is going to cross my desk.
00;12;06;10 - 00;12;31;06
Pat Haney
The ones that do, again, there's some kind of bizarre phenomena, you know, like I'm making up a hypothetical, but, you know, it could be well, we have a polycarbonate piece that is four thousandths wall thickness. And you know, a centimeter long or something, you know. So how do we fill that? You know, on oh, by the way, there's a core bend in the middle of it, you know, so crazy things like that.
00;12;31;06 - 00;13;00;04
Pat Haney
That's just an example. But if anything gets to the point where we go, well, maybe we can do it, but we've never quite done anything like that before, and neither does anybody else. So instead of putting it through process development, that's going to go to R&D through this prototyping phase instead. And there's, this is actually something new that MTD started to crank out the last few months to a year, is different prototyping pipeline for projects that make sense to put through.
00;13;00;04 - 00;13;20;17
Pat Haney
So sometimes I do work on customer projects but those projects are very, they're bizarre for some reason, you know, and then the ultimate goal is to eventually hand that off to regular process development, you know, because we want to see success. So sometimes there is things like that going on.
00;13;20;17 - 00;13;56;16
Pat Haney
Other times, if things are maybe a little bit slower on the prototyping customer project front, I will, you know, there's a whole laundry list of weird phenomena that we've observed in the past, and if I have some free time, sometimes I can, I spend a lot of time researching that. I'm a Google scholar, a lot of time talking on the phone with, you know, resident experts are polymer chemists at a resin supplier or something, trying to wrap my head around weird things that we see.
00;13;56;16 - 00;14;24;09
Pat Haney
Sometimes, it's a lot of discussions with customers before they're even, there may be, they'll be in the design phase and they don't know what material to use or what's necessary and what's not necessary for what their applications kind of demand. So I do interface a lot with customers in that capacity, too, where I can do a lot of work with sales and account managing and things like that to make sure that we are going to give the customer what they need on the front end before anything gets kicked off.
00;14;24;09 - 00;14;47;18
Pat Haney
So there's the least amount of backtracking in the prototyping phase, you know. So beyond that, conferences I go to, a lot of conferences, give a lot of talks. So usually when it's trade show season, I can be jumping around on an airplane every once in a while. So it's pretty dynamic. It can change, and I think that's one of the things I like about it the most, to be honest.
00;14;47;18 - 00;15;10;22
Mercedes Landazuri
And you get to work with quite a lot of materials, right? Pretty wide variety? I saw that you had really interesting, so you won first place in the engineering division at Behrend for it was like 14 with the, Exploring Coconut Shell Reinforced Polypropylene and Olefin Blends.
00;15;10;22 - 00;15;19;20
Pat Haney
Right. Yeah. Yeah, we, I forgot about that actually. That's funny. I haven’t thought about that coconut project in a long time. Yeah.
00;15;20;03 - 00;15;20;18
Lynzie Nebel
Mercedes does a deep dive.
00;15;20;18 - 00;15;28;01
Pat Haney
Yeah I remember that the lab supervisor walked over because it smelled so good because we put coconut oil in it.
00;15;28;10 - 00;15;30;22
Pat Haney
We used coconut oil as a plasticizer for that.
00;15;30;22 - 00;15;31;10
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh, nice.
00;15;31;10 - 00;15;38;20
Pat Haney
And we ended up, I remember we ended up lowering the glass transition like a full ten degrees Celsius, just with coconut oil and like turkey pans.
00;15;39;15 - 00;15;39;24
Pat Haney
You know.
00;15;40;13 - 00;15;47;29
Pat Haney
Like mixing it in turkey pans. And before we put it in the hopper, it smelled like Oreos for some bizarre reason. I don't know why.
00;15;48;00 - 00;15;48;25
Lynzie Nebel
I’m kind of mad about that.
00;15;48;26 - 00;15;55;00
Pat Haney
No. And I remember the shop supervisor, she was like, what is this like? And we were like, this is polypropylene, you probably shouldn't eat that.
00;15;55;06 - 00;15;55;14
Pat Haney
You know.
00;15;56;05 - 00;15;59;02
Lynzie Nebel
It's not for her.
00;15;59;02 - 00;16;02;16
Lynzie Nebel
Everybody chews on pellets, especially polypropylene, if you're going to go...
00;16;02;20 - 00;16;03;02
Pat Haney
Yeah.
00;16;03;02 - 00;16;03;27
Lynzie Nebel
Pick a polypro.
00;16;04;05 - 00;16;04;14
Pat Haney
Yeah.
00;16;04;19 - 00;16;06;27
Lynzie Nebel
So if it’s a glass-filled nylon, then we’ve got a problem.
00;16;07;07 - 00;16;07;27
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00;16;08;03 - 00;16;11;24
Pat Haney
It's like chewing on some fiberglass, I think.
00;16;11;24 - 00;16;12;25
Pat Haney
Yeah. Well, well.
00;16;13;05 - 00;16;38;27
Pat Haney
I guess with that in mind, that's probably where my original interest in polymer science research and development came into play, right? Because there was a lot of projects in college and in school where I was playing around with additives , or trying to nucleate a crystallinity with something you know, whether it'd be a processing method or, or something like that.
00;16;38;27 - 00;17;04;00
Pat Haney
So there was a lot of additives and compounding because in college we could, we had the luxury of like extruding and pelletizing our own stuff and then we could try to mold it later. So we had kind of the full spectrum of capability in that sense. So after we do that, we, you know, we do mechanical testing on them and we do DNA and DSC and, you know, all this all this crazy Doc Brown stuff.
00;17;04;00 - 00;17;32;26
Pat Haney
So like that translated to I mentioned the first R&D projects I did for MTD. Bob is still in school and TD works with a lot of bioabsorbables, right? So that's a huge vein of what we do. And that's just those are biocompatible materials that are basically chemically engineered to dissolve or disassociate at the rate of tissue regeneration. So they're implanted into the body and perform some kind of function.
00;17;32;26 - 00;18;02;02
Pat Haney
And then basically just break down until it, like, lactic acid or something, you know, something that your body just kind of incorporates and absorbs. So, you know, instead of polypropylene and coconut shell fibers, you know, it transitioned into bioabsorbables, PLAs, PLGs, lactite, glycolite stuff. And can we nucleate those things with like hydroxyapatite now? So that's what the project was.
00;18;02;02 - 00;18;28;17
Pat Haney
It was synthetic bone dust is basically what that is, you know, trying to speed up the slow crystallization process of PLA in that sense. So yeah, that's where the R&D kind of interest started and it was a great fit for MTD. So like I said, MTD does a lot of a lot of bioabsorbable stuff in terms of all the materials we work with octides, glycolides, caprolactones, polydioxanones.
00;18;29;10 - 00;18;30;03
Lynzie Nebel
All of your basics, right?
00;18;30;03 - 00;18;56;09
Pat Haney
Yeah, all the basics. Yeah. So those materials are bizarre in and of themselves because they're literally made and polymerized to degrade, you know. So they're very prone to oxidation, they're very prone to hydrolysis, they're meant to be, right. So it's not really a failure of the material. It's really a success of the material that they are that way.
00;18;56;20 - 00;19;21;14
Pat Haney
So the question becomes, how do you take a material like that, that is prone to degradation and is meant to degrade and, you know, expose it to the highest shear rates in injection molding, you know, and how do you do that and preserve material integrity? Right. So, yeah, it's very specialized. It's a very specialized technique with very specialized materials.
00;19;21;24 - 00;19;50;24
Pat Haney
But with that being said, I will add there's other materials that we use, too, like the more common ones, the commodity plastics, engineering plastics, all the way to high performance. We do a lot of PEEK, because PEEK is super popular for permanent implants that aren't meant to dissolve PEIs, all that kind of stuff. So really the only thing we don't touch I think would be like silicone because that's just completely different, LSR is just completely different hardware.
00;19;50;24 - 00;20;16;15
Pat Haney
And we don't do a lot of PVC because when you shear that, it releases hydrochloric acid and you know, let's say you have a 5000 skate diameter, for example. Right. It doesn't take very long for hydrochloric outgassing to eat away at, you know, a 5000ths hole that's popped in a steel plate, you know. So it's very corrosive and it's very difficult to deal with.
00;20;16;15 - 00;20;20;29
Pat Haney
But luckily, there's other medical alternatives to that material. So yeah.
00;20;21;11 - 00;20;50;07
Lynzie Nebel
Well, we're kind of talking a lot about like the different polymers and like what their benefits to non benefits, all that kind of stuff and how they are a big part of micro molding, but the other side of that is your tooling. What kind of what kind of adjustments do you need to make in your tooling for micro molding?
00;20;51;17 - 00;21;14;28
Pat Haney
No, I think tooling is probably arguably the most important part of the whole thing. You know, I think I tend to talk about plastics, the plastic a lot because that's the world that I live in. But we are, you know, top down. So we have our own machine shop here that has a whole smattering of capabilities, that it all starts there.
00;21;14;28 - 00;21;33;24
Pat Haney
You know, if we didn't build the tools in-house, I don't think we would have the success that we have because those guys back there, it's funny because I've said to new employees and stuff when they start, guys that we're all just regular people, right? We're all really kind of quirky in one way or the other, but we're all really good at what we do, you know?
00;21;33;24 - 00;21;55;21
Pat Haney
And everybody has different special specialties. So yeah, we have a huge machine shop. We actually just doubled the size of the building. We, we build an addition in the last few years, believe it or not, during like the height of COVID, we were building an expansion. Yeah, right. So we, we about doubled the size of I want to say somebody is going to yell at me for this later.
00;21;55;21 - 00;22;24;25
Pat Haney
I'll probably get it wrong. I think it's a 2400 square foot addition. I think so. The old machine shops converting back into new clean rooms and then the addition encompasses all kinds of things. Wired EDMs, synchro EDMs. We have technology that, it's that concept with a single electrode so you know and some more conventional means of CNC and milling and those kinds of things.
00;22;24;25 - 00;22;55;19
Pat Haney
But yeah, the entire mold base right down to the inserts and the cavity geometries to run your system. All that stuff is designed here at MTD. It's, you know, the engineers and the processors interface with the design engineers all the time. So it's a really kind of well-oiled machine. You start to, once you live in an environment like this, you start to realize that everything is kind of this ball of yarn, that everything's kind of attached because the tooling is driven by the plastic and the shrinkage, but the molding is driven by the tooling.
00;22;55;19 - 00;22;59;03
Pat Haney
And it's all very, you know, everything needs everybody.
00;22;59;23 - 00;23;03;23
Mercedes Landazuri
Right? You know, so I imagine everybody works really collaboratively then.
00;23;03;23 - 00;23;42;28
Pat Haney
Yeah, yeah. It's probably one of the other reason why I like MTD so much is because I think we're only, I think at 40 some employees, we’re pretty small, relatively speaking, but it's still kind of a family environment sort of thing. We all get along really well, and that's like, so important that we can we can be honest about our feedback or we can everybody's got this open door policy, so if you have a concern about something or you're thinking about something or you're stumped, it's not very hard to find the resource that you need to solve that problem or even just bounce ideas off of.
00;23;42;29 - 00;23;46;07
Pat Haney
Yeah, it's a fantastic environment.
00;23;46;07 - 00;23;48;07
Lynzie Nebel
Open door unless you're recording a podcast.
00;23;48;21 - 00;23;54;08
Pat Haney
Yeah. Yeah. I have a sign on the door right now. It's taped and I wrote in Sharpie in big, bold letters: Don't bother me.
00;23;55;08 - 00;23;58;03
Lynzie Nebel
And someone’s going to be like, he’s fine, I can bother him, right.
00;23;58;12 - 00;23;59;10
Pat Haney
Tapping on their desk.
00;23;59;10 - 00;23;59;27
Lynzie Nebel
Just like that.
00;24;03;06 - 00;24;13;05
Mercedes Landazuri
So, now, we did touch on this right before we started recording, but now tell me how you guys met.
00;24;13;05 - 00;24;36;03
Lynzie Nebel
I was going to say. I mean, we know each other through the program. Yeah. Because obviously it's a small enough program that you kind of know names of people above you, names of people below you. And we did overlap a short time at MTD, before, Pat stayed, and I did not.
00;24;36;03 - 00;24;39;08
Lynzie Nebel
And now he's just doing all the things.
00;24;39;08 - 00;24;46;09
Mercedes Landazuri
So question for you, Pat. Has Bryan Young ever made you cry?
00;24;47;15 - 00;24;47;25
Lynzie Nebel
Always?
00;24;47;25 - 00;24;50;15
Pat Haney
No, He did, uh, I am probably going to get him in trouble.
00;24;50;27 - 00;24;55;16
Pat Haney
He did hit me in the shin He did. Hit me in the shin with a wrench once, though.
00;24;56;25 - 00;24;57;25
Lynzie Nebel
That sounds on brand.
00;24;58;05 - 00;25;11;04
Pat Haney
Yeah. Yeah, I was in the molding shop in the lab. And I had, I was a college kid, and I had steel toes from Wal-Mart on. Right. Because they're like 30 bucks and...
00;25;11;05 - 00;25;15;07
Lynzie Nebel
And you are at least wearing steel toes because I don't think my class...
00;25;15;28 - 00;25;28;16
Pat Haney
Well, yeah. I mean it got to the point where they were like, hey, if you walk in here without toe protectors on your steel toes, we're going to fail you out of your senior project. And we were like, okay, I thought I was I was a little extreme, but you know.
00;25;28;28 - 00;25;30;00
Lynzie Nebel
We have. Yes.
00;25;31;28 - 00;25;38;14
Lynzie Nebel
So, yeah, I had these like Wal-Mart steel toes on because if you put the toe caps on, you sound like this. Like a horse.
00;25;38;15 - 00;25;39;03
Lynzie Nebel
Little horse.
00;25;39;03 - 00;26;05;22
Pat Haney
You know? Yeah. Like, actually, though. So I was like, whatever. I'm just going to wear these $30 boots. But they didn't look like steel toes, because they weren't Chippewas or, you know, whatever else. So he didn't think they were steel toes and he was like, Hey are those steel toes? And I was like, Yeah, they’re steel toes. And he's like, You sure? And he like, picks up a wrench and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. And he threw it and he meant to hit like it was going to bounce off the toe.
00;26;06;16 - 00;26;16;08
Pat Haney
If I was telling the truth, I would have been fine. But he must not be very good athlete, because he hit me right in the shin instead. And he probably doesn't remember, you know.
00;26;16;08 - 00;26;19;23
Lynzie Nebel
Who says, don't worry, he probably doesn't even listen.
00;26;20;17 - 00;26;22;05
Pat Haney
Know. Yeah. Yeah. That, too.
00;26;22;27 - 00;26;27;13
Mercedes Landazuri
I love a good Bryan Young story.
00;26;28;01 - 00;26;40;09
Pat Haney
Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of them. But he was my, I got him as a grader, too, on my senior project, and said that's like the worst case scenario as a undergrad Penn plastics student in there.
00;26;40;09 - 00;26;52;23
Pat Haney
Because he's, he was by far the strictest grader on it, you know, but if I if I'm not mistaken, I believe we ended up getting a 98 on that project. So it all panned out in the end, I guess. Yeah.
00;26;53;21 - 00;26;56;14
Lynzie Nebel
All worked out. So probably makes up for that wrench throw.
00;26;56;26 - 00;26;57;05
Pat Haney
Yeah, maybe.
00;26;57;05 - 00;27;17;24
Mercedes Landazuri
So going back to some of the stuff you're doing now, I know we're kind of running short on time. What can you tell us? I know you can't tell us all the things, but what are some of the coolest things you’ve worked on or like worked on in the past or maybe are working on now, and not coconut?
00;27;18;01 - 00;27;21;25
Pat Haney
Right, not coconut shells?
00;27;21;25 - 00;27;51;26
Pat Haney
Yeah. I mean, that question can go all sorts of different directions, you know, because there's, there's so many cool things that we've done over the years here. But I think maybe like a couple of cool examples are like we really started to notice that, you know, if we talk about, if we, if for those of us listeners that know how an injection speed is optimized and have been in the molding process, right.
00;27;52;12 - 00;28;15;25
Pat Haney
You're, you basically are gathering cavity pressure data and fill time data and things like that and plotting a chart and then watching, the effort is to watch when the viscosity isn't affected by changing shear rate so much. Right because you want to, the buzzword is accommodate for material variation, right, forever burned into my brain from that school, but...
00;28;17;01 - 00;28;17;24
Pat Haney
Yeah so.
00;28;19;22 - 00;28;41;22
Pat Haney
We noticed that that viscosity behavior doesn't act the same when we are, you know, more micro molding and through. I've done a lot of talks on this too, you know, different trade shows and things. Yeah, yeah. I talked about that. I did. I think I have talked about it at ANTEC, I think, but maybe.
00;28;41;22 - 00;28;42;17
Pat Haney
But we noticed it.
00;28;43;13 - 00;29;09;24
Pat Haney
There's a point where like things act like water, they act Newtonian and then they start to act non-Newtonian and shear thin. But then you reach a point and it is actually possible, believe it or not, where all the polymers are oriented in the same direction. There's no entanglement during flow. And when that happens, not fountain flow and non-Newtonian characteristics don't really, aren’t, they start acting Newtonian again, you know, so that realization.
00;29;09;29 - 00;29;13;28
Lynzie Nebel
You take your book from Penn State, light it on fire.
00;29;14;07 - 00;29;40;27
Pat Haney
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like all these, all these conventional tools that, you know, macro molders that use aren't applicable here, you know, so we also found out that when you get to that degree, the crystalline structures change because the nucleation sites change, right? So we basically, you know, in other words, find out that, okay, so this stuff doesn't flow the way that we expected it to flow and it doesn't set up the way that we expect it to set up.
00;29;41;13 - 00;30;03;16
Pat Haney
So there's a complete revamp on how we, you know, change our processing methods and how do we optimize the process now, you know, because all the regular industry tools aren't quite cutting it, you know, so kind of being the thought leaders in the spearheaders of that, at least in a practical sense, because there's a plenty of academics that already knew that stuff happened right?
00;30;03;16 - 00;30;12;01
Pat Haney
It's the activity of marrying like practical manufacturing and industry with like theoretical academia, you know, because they have a lot of great knowledge.
00;30;12;01 - 00;30;17;01
Lynzie Nebel
And I love that because I feel like that is a big gap in our industry. Oh yeah, right.
00;30;17;01 - 00;30;19;26
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah. We've got news and talking about it every Saturday.
00;30;19;26 - 00;30;41;06
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah. I mean there's so much, there's so much academic knowledge and knowledge in the theoretical level and the application of it in, you know, your manufacturers or general manufacturers, sometimes that is just like, that's not even like a little crick you got to jump over.
00;30;41;06 - 00;30;42;16
Lynzie Nebel
That is like a gorge.
00;30;43;26 - 00;30;44;17
Pat Haney
Right? Yeah.
00;30;44;18 - 00;30;47;02
Lynzie Nebel
I guess the one behind Behrend where we all used to go.
00;30;47;08 - 00;30;52;16
Pat Haney
I like that you said crick, because everybody out here makes fun of me for saying crick, because it’s supposed to be creek.
00;30;52;16 - 00;30;53;28
Lynzie Nebel
As I said it, I felt...
00;30;54;12 - 00;30;56;27
Pat Haney
That's awesome. Now that's great. I love it when other people say it.
00;30;57;10 - 00;31;02;29
Mercedes Landazuri
Well, they talk like that. Is that like a Buffalo thing or what?
00;31;02;29 - 00;31;04;12
Lynzie Nebel
I think it's more Pennsylvania.
00;31;05;02 - 00;31;06;02
Pat Haney
Western Pennsylvania.
00;31;06;02 - 00;31;07;20
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah, right.
00;31;07;20 - 00;31;09;18
Lynzie Nebel
That's not something I inherently grew up with.
00;31;09;19 - 00;31;11;05
Pat Haney
Yeah, it's like I was talking about.
00;31;11;05 - 00;31;11;29
Lynzie Nebel
...that of me.
00;31;11;29 - 00;31;14;15
Pat Haney
Getting my oil changed in my car. I have oil.
00;31;15;03 - 00;31;20;26
Pat Haney
Oil, but people. Are like, what do you want to do? Because I'm like, I gotta get my oil changed or oil changed.
00;31;21;12 - 00;31;22;20
Pat Haney
You know? So anyway.
00;31;23;08 - 00;31;46;03
Pat Haney
Yeah. So that's, that's kind of my main personal, I guess maybe career goal is to find ways to marry academia or at least the theoretical world, not necessarily academia, but the theoretical world with practical manufacturing because they have different motivations. And because of that, they don't communicate very often, you know, which is curious because you'd think the research should be applied at some point.
00;31;46;03 - 00;32;09;09
Pat Haney
Right? So we have actually done things in the past where we're not, we don't have any people on the payroll to do this right now. But we had a physicist on staff for a while, actually, and that whole, the whole point was to, okay, well, how can we take somebody that is very well versed and technical minded in theory, right?
00;32;09;19 - 00;32;37;16
Pat Haney
And then we can we can give them the practical tools of plastics. And we got some really cool things that came out of that, you know, like we have methods now where if we have crazy undercuts in a part or something like that, we can we have mathematical models that can tell us is there a way that we can step the parting line or something like that to optimize the way the tool build has to be so that we can make this as cheap and effective and robust as possible.
00;32;37;16 - 00;32;46;03
Pat Haney
Right? So like a lot of really cool things like that where you kind of go, okay, well, is there research out there or can we just solve this problem with just pure math or something.
00;32;46;26 - 00;32;50;00
Mercedes Landazuri
Or coconut oil.
00;32;50;01 - 00;32;52;28
Pat Haney
Or coconut oil in a turkey pan? Yeah. Okay.
00;32;53;23 - 00;32;56;13
Lynzie Nebel
Now you're bridging the gap. One micro mold at a time.
00;32;56;25 - 00;32;57;28
Pat Haney
Oh, that’s so cute.
00;32;59;22 - 00;33;03;05
Lynzie Nebel
You know, I was just saving that.
00;33;03;05 - 00;33;20;06
Mercedes Landazuri
You know, they're so adorable. They're so adorable. I got a chance to see that. Gosh, yeah. I love getting on the floor whenever I can on the shop floor. And I really love small things. I guess that's all I have to say about that.
00;33;20;06 - 00;33;34;19
Lynzie Nebel
So, well, you say as part of like maybe not a direct result of your project, but I know they just installed a Sodick over at Behrend’s yesterday.
00;33;35;02 - 00;33;36;21
Pat Haney
Oh, oh, yeah.
00;33;36;21 - 00;33;41;17
Lynzie Nebel
Something like that. So now I can just look at it. So right.
00;33;41;17 - 00;33;46;13
Pat Haney
Yeah, I remember that being a big I was advocating for that quite a bit. Right. Because that's another thing.
00;33;46;17 - 00;33;47;00
Lynzie Nebel
So cool.
00;33;47;07 - 00;34;13;08
Pat Haney
MTD doesn't mold with conventional reciprocating screws. The injection units aren’t normal, right, there's over under things that use screws and plungers and junctions and things, and it's all for repeatability and precision because, you know, our cushion isn't, our cushions are measured in millimeters, not, you know, inches or something. So, you know, you need that extra level of precision.
00;34;13;08 - 00;34;16;11
Pat Haney
Sodicks are fantastic for that. Absolutely.
00;34;17;06 - 00;34;19;16
Lynzie Nebel
Well, if Sodick doesn't promote this episode, then...
00;34;19;21 - 00;34;22;04
Pat Haney
Oh, we're doing it, or are we doing the ads?
00;34;22;16 - 00;34;29;01
Lynzie Nebel
We're going to have to call up Sodick, just so you know, you purchased an ad unknowingly.
00;34;29;01 - 00;34;32;07
Pat Haney
Right.
00;34;32;16 - 00;34;37;01
Mercedes Landazuri
I feel like I, you know, like ... would be down for that.
00;34;37;01 - 00;34;38;03
Lynzie Nebel
Oh, 100%, that'll be fine.
00;34;39;28 - 00;34;42;22
Pat Haney
They probably actually, they probably would.
00;34;42;22 - 00;34;42;28
Lynzie Nebel
Yeah.
00;34;44;16 - 00;34;51;10
Lynzie Nebel
God bless them. All right. Well, I think we are just about out of time.
00;34;51;10 - 00;34;56;20
Mercedes Landazuri
Yeah, we got to work, and you got to go tell Danny that he can talk again.
00;34;56;20 - 00;35;07;19
Lynzie Nebel
Oh, yeah, I do have my husband doing... I'm quiet notice in the corner, you know. Well, Pat, it's awesome to talk to you. Always good to hear all the cool stuff that's going on at MTD.
00;35;08;23 - 00;35;23;00
Lynzie Nebel
And we love the cool stuff you're doing and all the bridge gapping, gap bridging. There we go. It's wonderful, that.
00;35;23;00 - 00;35;24;02
Pat Haney
Yeah, that's awesome.
00;35;24;05 - 00;35;27;29
Mercedes Landazuri
I learned so much. There was, Lindsey, why didn't you tell me any of this stuff before?
00;35;27;29 - 00;35;30;17
Lynzie Nebel
Oh, I like to keep things a secret.
00;35;30;17 - 00;35;32;24
Mercedes Landazuri
Typical. Typical. Okay.
00;35;32;24 - 00;35;33;08
Pat Haney
All right.
00;35;33;08 - 00;35;34;06
Lynzie Nebel
Well, thanks so much.
00;35;34;17 - 00;35;37;25
Pat Haney
All right, guys. That was fun.
00;35;37;25 - 00;36;06;10
Lynzie Nebel
Hey, thanks so much for listening to PlastChicks. New episodes appear on the first Friday of every month, so either follow or subscribe to get those new episodes ASAP. PlastChicks, The Voices of Resin, is a plastics podcast sponsored by SPE-Inspiring Plastics Professionals. If you want to find out more about SPE, please visit 4, like the number, SPE dot org.
00;36;06;10 - 00;36;09;05
Mercedes Landazuri
Oh, PlastChicks.