Stock Shapes

From Plastics Wiki, free encyclopedia

Materials suppliers and distributors often sell their product as pre-formed, simple, solid, geometric chunks, and pre-formed films, all commonly termed "stock shapes". In addition, some retailers have finished products that can be treated as stock shapes.

Some of the most common shapes are:

• Block - brick, cube
• Plate - thick, thin - square, round, partial-round
• Round - cylinder, sphere, hemisphere
• Rod - square, round, partial-round, I-beam
• Tube - thick wall, thin wall
• Sheet - thick, thin - large area, small area
• Film - general, food-grade

Some Uncommon shapes:

(Not traditionally stock, but still a ready source of uniform product chunks for the machinist)

• designer - polygonal, polyhedral - pyramidal
• decor - wavy, curved, and irregular-shape sheets (used in "modern-art" decor)

Distributors

• Ex-Tech - sheets, food-grade films

• US Plastic - wide variety of stock shapes (and many products)

Retailers

• 3-form - blocks, plates, sheets, irregular sheets in designer colors and patterns

• triodisplay - finished acrylic blocks, cylinders, plates (and wide variety of display structures)