The beginnings of a new industry
The 1930s can be considered the beginning of thermoforming, or the shaping of plastics on machines called thermoformers. At that time, a lot of development effort was put into creating acrylic aircraft covers, which were in high demand. Like today, they also used sheet plates, molds and machines. The process looked different from today, of course. Neither molds nor plastics were as advanced as they are today. In the 1930s, molds were already water-cooled, so that the surface of the plate sheet facing up cooled and became hard enough to avoid damaging the surface of the mold. The inner surface of the plate sheet was free of blemishes because it only came into contact with the hot liquid that heated it. The process was a far cry from the modified method used today, in which air pressure forms the sheet on temperature-controlled molds. The following years saw the development of thermoforming machines. They began to use vacuum to pre-stretch the hot sheet. Entrepreneurs had neither our modern tools nor the knowledge of hindsight, but they developed many of the processes that the plastics forming industry now uses.
Such were the beginnings of thermoforming between 1930 and 1950.
Why thermoforming?
The term "thermoforming" itself was born in the late 1930s in the United States. The term began to appear in trade journals because earlier terms for the process as "vacuum and pressure forming" were less appropriate. The term caught on, so much so that it is still used today around the world.
By 1950, thin-walled vacuum-formed packaging and large and thick machine housings were already being formed. The so-called "golden age" of thermoforming was 1950-1960, when the technology was refined in the US to meet market expectations at the time.
Thanks to thermoforming, many mass-produced solutions that were previously made by hand have been improved. Vacuum has accelerated and greatly cheapened many products allowing them to become popular and widely available. One of the most interesting examples are plastic maps so-called relief-raised maps, which had applications in civil engineering, military, cartography and science.
Packaging industry
Vacuum thermoforming has revolutionized many industries, most notably packaging and logistics. A new market has emerged: trays, transport trays, blisters, extrusions with designed, dedicated slots in which to place the product. Companies specializing in the production of thin-film blisters for the food or pharmaceutical industry have been established. Without them, packaged chocolates, cookies and tablets would be different. Without transport trays, transportation of bottles, car parts, electronics would be different.
Many interesting products and solutions have been created, which are still used by us today, and we don't even know where such an idea came from.
Our beginnings
Origins Geo Globe Poland The year was 1993, when Kruk and Fischer was established as a joint venture with German partner Dr. K.G. Fischer. We started production with a staff of 4 people. The first serial production and first export sales began a year later with the production of defibrillator cases. Today, after almost 30 years, we work on much more modern machines than we used to and make parts and details that we didn't even dream of at the beginning of our journey. Despite this time and the experience that the plastics processing market offers, we continue to discover new possibilities. Large transport trays, covers and enclosures for virtually any industry are our specialty.
We sometimes wonder if the forerunners who started processing plastics more than 90 years ago were aware that what they started then would be continued for generations to come and developed on such a large scale.