Click here to buy Nylon.The two main grades of Nylon are Nylon 66 and Nylon 6. This very versatile plastic is one of the most famous engineering plastics and seems to be the standard choice for bearings and other wear resistant components.

Nylon Rod
Nylon Rod is probably the most popular of all the engineering plastics and is generally available in a size range from as small as 4mm diameter up to and often bigger than 600mm diameter. Nylon Rod is manufactured by either extruding process, or cast process. In general, the cast process has less internal stress. Nylon Rod is also mainly produced in either natural colour or black. Black Nylon Rod can often contain Molybdenum disulphide which can help with self lubrication in obscure areas and also can look aesthetically better in dirty environments. Nylon Rod is often manufactured oversize and can help where tight tolerances are needed. Nylon Rod is very good for machining in both manual and automatic lathes and a huge and varied amount of components are made from Nylon Rod.

Oil Filled Rod is another form of Nylon Rod that incorporates high quality specialist oil added at the production process. This will dramatically improve the overall performance and lifespan of almost any component. Oil Filled Nylon Rod is generally green in colour to help identify this particular product. There are typically two types of Nylon Rod, either Nylon 66 Rod or Nylon 6 Rod. There are few differences between the two grades other than Nylon 66 Rod has a minute advantage in terms of heat resistance and hardness, although Nylon 6 Rod has a slight advantage in terms of size availability, Impact resistance and price. Machining Nylon Rod involves adhering to a few rules such as using sharp tools and reducing localised heat building, this is not too difficult but is often neglected resulting in cracked or shattered rod.

Nylon Sheet
Nylon Sheet is also a very popular engineering plastic and is generally available in a size range from 1mm thick up to 120mm and some manufacturers produce Nylon Sheet even thicker. Sheet sizes are generally produced in 2000 x 1000 and also 300 x 500 but there are a few manufacturers who produce Nylon Sheet at 610mm wide. The most popular grades are Nylon 66 and Nylon 6. Nylon 6 Sheet is the most popular as it has the largest available range of sizes and is also more economical. Nylon 66 Sheet is slightly limited in its size range availability and is more expensive but does have the advantage of being slightly harder and also slightly better at higher temperatures. Oil filled Nylon Sheet is also a very important material as it takes self lubrication and abrasion resistance to a much lower level, this material is green in colour to identify the oil loaded grade. Blue Nylon Sheet is also quite popular as this grade denotes a double annealed process to reduce post machining distortion. Nylon Sheet is often used to produce wear blocks and slide ways in all forms of industries.

Nylon Sheet is fairly easy to machine with standard milling or drilling equipment and using standard machining tools although it is important that these tools are very sharp and heat building is avoided by use of coolants. Nylon Sheet is also very strong and in terms of compression, it can withstand 1 tonne per square inch, this would require the Nylon Sheet to be fully supported and is a feature for compression only. Nylon Sheet is subject to moisture absorption, this can cause the sheet to expand and is only relevant in tight tolerance applications.

Typical Advantages of Nylon:
• Excellent wear and abrasion resistance • Easy to machine • Economical