The Rival Deluxe Ice Shaver is not an extremely complex machine and the manufacturing processes behind it are also fairly simple for this day and age. The vast majority of this product is made of ABS plastic which is a very common substance used in a wide variety of consumer products ranging from computers, car parts, toy such as Legos, and, as is the case with or ice shaver, kitchen appliances. A much smaller portion of the parts in our product are stainless steel screws, washers, gear axels and the sharp cutting blade. Lastly we have a circuit board with conductive and non-conductive components to operate the motor.
The process used to form all of the plastic pieces in our product was most likely injection molding. In this process a preformed shell of the specific piece you are trying to make is filled with hot molten plastic and then left to cool off and harden. This technique is used in manufacturing processes for a huge variety of products such as the ones listed above and it is very popular because of its low costs and high output. ABS plastic is popular for injection molding because it is amorphous and has no true melting point.
Once this product has run through its life cycle many of its parts can be reused. All the steel components can be recycled using standard metal recycling processes. ABS plastic is what is known as a thermoplastic which can be heated back up and remolded after its first use. This is different from thermoset plastics which harden after being heated and cannot be reformed. This property allows thermoplastics to be recyclable. However, even though recycling of thermoplastics is possible it is not available on a commercial level at this time.
Our ice shaver could have been of a higher quality with a few changes. Firstly, having a metal sheet casing on the outside of the product would increase its durability and make it last longer. Also the tolerances in the gearbox were somewhat large and created a very loud noise during operation. If the gearbox was made with more precision it would be quieter and also last longer. However these features were most likely not put in place because it would cause the price to be much higher. This product is aimed for a lower income consumer base and would therefore push them away.
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