In-Mold Painting
A Cost Effective Solution
In-mold painting (IMP) with reaction injection molding delivers a durable finish straight from the mold, eliminating the need for secondary painting. This process saves time, reduces costs, and ensures superior adhesion, scratch resistance, and lasting aesthetics, ideal for commercial vehicle, industrial components, and consumer applications.
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What is In-mold Painting?
But what if there was another way? What if there was a process that eliminated nearly all of those time and labor costs, while still producing a high-quality, aesthetically pleasing finish?
Luckily, there is – and it’s called in-mold painting.
In-mold painting (sometimes referred to as in-mold coating) is a process pioneered by Romeo RIM for commercial use with products created using our reaction injection molding (RIM) and long fiber injection (LFI) technologies. Since beginning work with IMP in the 1980s, we have used it to create high-quality parts for the automotive, heavy truck, agriculture, construction, and personal spa and watercraft industries.
In-mold painting provides innumerable aesthetic advantages over its more traditional counterpart, post-mold painting, while being a quicker, easier, and more efficient process overall.
The In-Mold Painting Process
As the name suggests, in-mold painting occurs when the cavity of the mold is painted prior to the injection of the polyurethane material. At Romeo RIM, we use industrial grade two-component polyurethane paints designed specifically for working with polyurethane RIM materials.
Because of this, we are able to offer in-mold painting for our parts produced using either RIM or LFI processes. However, we are unable to offer in-mold painting for parts produced using dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) due to the nature of the materials used.
Painting happens right in the molding process – all of our manufacturing clamps are set up with the necessary equipment for in-mold painting.
There’s no more need to set aside large areas of workspace just for painting! During the molding process, the paint bonds chemically with the polyurethane material, creating a strong adhesion. For this reason, in-mold paint jobs are more resistant to flaking, chipping and cracking than those applied post-mold.
At Romeo RIM, we are careful to ensure that all of our in-mold paint jobs use just the right amount of paint, as too much or too little can damage a product’s surface.
