Acetal Bars & Plates

Acetal, often broadly referred to by the trade name Delrin, is one of the most versatile engineering plastics on the market today, and therefore is suitable for a huge range of applications.

Acetal is an excellent choice for machined parts, as the swarf chips off nicely rather than forming long spirals that clog up the machine tools. Acetal round bars are very well suited for use with CNC machines.

Acetal rods also have excellent strength, hardness and stiffness properties, which makes them ideal for the manufacture of items such as gears, chains, sprockets, nuts & screws.

Having a high wear resistance, high scratch resistance, and very low friction properties, Acetal is commonly used as bearings, bushes, rollers, sliders and wear strips. These components are found in whole magnitude of machinery, cars and motorcycles. We also have a customer who buys Acetal Round bars to manufacture adult toys…but probably the less said about that the better!

Acetal bars also have very low absorption properties which makes them very dimensionally stable. An ingress of water or other liquid can cause other materials to expand. Acetal is also widely used in the food production and packaging industry because of its very minimal absorption of harmful bacteria.

There are 2 grades of Acetal commonly available  – Acetal Copolymer (POM-C), and Acetal Homopolymer (POM-H), often produced under the trade name Delrin.  The 2 grades are commonly interchangeable, as the majority of their properties are within 10% of each other. However, there are some slight differences which on occasions can make one grade more suitable than the other.

Advantages of Acetal Copolymer (POM-C) over Homopolymer (POM-H)

• Lower porosity / water absorption properties
• Suitable for food contact – FDA & 3A (Dairy) compliant
• Better Chemical Resistance
• Better wear resistance

Advantages of Acetal Homopolymer (POM-H) / Delrin over Copolymer (POM-C)

Better tensile strength

Slightly harder than POM-C

The Acetal bars that we currently stock are type Copolymer (POM-C).  Should your application specifically require Homopolymer (POM-H) / Delrin,  or you require a colour other than Black or White, then please contact us for a quote.

Acetal bar stock sizes we currently provide:

We have Black Acetal Bars and White Acetal Bars on the shelf ready for immediate despatch to the customer in the following sizes:

• 8mm dia.
• 10mm dia.
• 12mm dia.
• 16mm dia.
• 20mm dia.
• 25mm dia.
• 30mm dia.
• 40mm dia.
• 50mm dia.
• 60mm dia.
• 70mm dia.
• 80mm dia.
• 100mm dia.

Other materials that we can provide you:

Unlike with metals such as Aluminium and Stainless steel, Acetal is not produced in flat bar, flat strip, or flat stock profiles. If you require an Acetal Flat Bar or strip, then please contact us for a price as we can get if cut from Acetal Plate in the width and thickness required.

Via our established supply partnerships we also have access to the following materials, which can all be supplied cut to size, delivered quickly (typically 2-3 working days) and all at very competitive prices.

• Acrylic / Perspex Sheets
• Polycarbonate / Macralon
• Nylon
• Tufnol
• ABS
• PVC
• Polyethelyne (UHMWPE)
• Polypropylene
• PTFE

Please email sales@1stchoicemetals.co.uk or call us on 01905 774623 with your enquiries.