Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd.

Toshihiko Mori

Akiyoshi Nagano

Tetsuya Fujii

Katsuhiro Katagiri

Takahiro Komori

Kenichi Furuta

Kazuo Fujihara

Tatsuo Yamada

Hiroshi Iwata

Tadamasa Kidera

Akihiko Suzuki

Atsuo Kikuchi

Toru Kai

Norio Jogan

Tetsuaki Inaba

Yasuo Mouri

A resin part such as an instrument panel, a console box or door trim has a substrate body made of hard resin and a skin mounted on a surface of the substrate. To produce the resin part, a preformed elastic sheet is set within a mold cavity. Then, a molten resin is injected into the cavity through gates. The molten resin is first injected into the cavity through gates that are opposed to the skin and after the passage of a predetermined time, the resin is injected through gates that are not opposed to the skin, thereby forming a substrate that has the skin thermally fused to a surface thereof.

Method for molding resin to skin members

A resilient surface sheet element 14 is vacuum molded from a resilient laminate sheet member 13 including a skin sheet 10 and a foam sheet 12. The resilient surface sheet element 14 is placed in a predetermined recess 16 of a female mold 15 for molding an instrument panel. After a first thermoplastic resin 18 is fed into a space between a male mold 17 and the resilient surface sheet element 14 placed in the female mold 15, the female mold 15 and the male mold 17 are closed tightly. The first thermoplastic resin 18 then flows through a first cavity section formed on a rear face of the resilient surface sheet element 14 to be integrated with the resilient surface sheet element 14. Before the first plastic resin 18 completely hardens in the first cavity section, a second thermoplastic resin 21 is injected from an injection gate 20 into a second cavity section adjacent to the first cavity section to securely fuse and join with the first thermoplastic resin 18.

Method of manufacturing resin member

An air-conditioning grille comprises an inner case having an opening through which the wind blows out located in a wind blowing duct. In the duct, provided are plural wind deflecting plates which are bendable so as to make both the ends thereof extend substantially crossing the blowing direction. In the duct provided is a connecting member which connects the upstream ends of the wind deflecting plates together and restricts rotations of these connecting portions relative to each other. Also provided is an operation member to be operated to bend the wind deflecting plates. One transfer shaft is provided to transfer an operational force of the operation member, at the time of its operation, to the connecting member. In order to prevent the connecting member from rotating itself about the transfer shaft with operation of the operation member, rotation moments of the connecting member about the transfer shaft substantially cancel one another.

Air-conditioning grille

A vacuum forming process, and an apparatus for carrying out the same, for imparting a predetermined shape to a sheet material. The process includes the steps of placing a thermally softened sheet material onto a molding surface of a mold and evacuating air remaining between the molding surface of the mold and the sheet material, thereby bringing the sheet material into a close contact with the molding surface of the surface of the mold. The vacuum forming process and apparatus is adapted for giving a predetermined shape to a sheet material having a low elongation ratio. In particular, when giving a predetermined shape to the sheet material, part of the sheet material is pressed with a pressing member against the molding surface of the mold, a peripheral portion of the sheet material is held with a holding member, and holding forces exerted by a plurality of holding portions of the holding member are varied in order to control movement amounts of the sheet material resulting from a pressing force of the pressing member. In this manner, a predetermined shape can be given to a sheet material without causing wrinkles thereto, even when the sheet material has a low elongation ratio.

Process and apparatus for vacuum forming

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Toshihiko Mori