Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Vehicle body ornament
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-29
2001-01-30
Jones, Deborah (Department: 1775)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Vehicle body ornament
C428S174000, C428S187000, C428S421000, C428S515000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06180195
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to shaped molded polymer articles generally, and particularly relates to shaped articles formed from a molded polymer substrate which have a decorative surfacing film on the outer surface thereof presenting a surface appearance of high quality comparable to a high quality automotive paint finish.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The trend in the automobile industry is towards increased use of plastic body panels in automobile construction. Use of such panels makes it possible to reduce the weight of the automobiles and also to reduce tooling costs arising from body styling changes, while providing increased styling freedom in car design. Other advantages arising from this type of construction include reduced facility costs and factory floor space requirements, and process cycle times allowing the just-in-time, low inventory manufacturing of parts at or near the automobile assembly plant. See C. Kirkland and P. Dickard, Dateline: Detroit. SAE Show News Bulletins,
Plastic Technology,
page 103 (April 1986).
A significant problem with plastic automobile body parts is that many of the most desirable molding polymers for such parts are not weatherable. Moreover, many such polymers do not provide a good bonding surface for paints. Even where paint bonding problems are overcome, conventional spray-painting techniques pose a significant pollution problem arising from the evaporation of noxious paint solvents, and, further, are very expensive if a high quality, multiple coat paint finish is to be obtained. Because the overall finished appearance of an automobile is among its most important selling features, these problems are serious, and a great deal of effort and expense is being devoted to their solution. See, for example,
Automotive Coatings: Helping Detroit Woo Consumers,
Chemical Week, page 30, (Jul. 4, 1984). One approach to this problem is to provide a film surface for the plastic part.
Various molded polymer automobile parts with film surfaces have been made in the past. For example, clear, unpigmented, nonweatherable, cast PVC films have been used to surface interior automobile parts. Another example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,679,510 to Conley and Ellison, discloses a reverse-printed, oriented, polyvinyl fluoride film (a “TEDLAR” film) bonded to a molded polymer substrate. Such weatherable, oriented films are excellent for use in making side rails and other automobile trim parts. These films are, however, difficult to uniformly internally pigment, and are generally not suitable for use in a deep draw molding procedure. In order to be useful as a surfacing film on exterior automobile parts, the film must duplicate the surface appearance of a quality automobile paint finish. The finish must have high gloss, high distinctness of image (DOI), excellent weatherability and durability under exposure to sunlight and temperature extremes, and the film must match the solid and metallic colors used in automobile paint finishes.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a molded polymer article which has a weatherable surface.
A further object of the invention is to provide an article as described above which has a high grade decorative finish suitable for use as an automobile body part.
An additional object of the invention is to provide an article of the type described which can be deep draw molded into various three-dimensional shapes used in automobile body parts.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention are achieved in the embodiments illustrated herein by the provision of an article having a contoured, decorative outer surface, and which is comprised of a molded polymer substrate and a decorative surfacing film adhered to one side of the substrate and conforming to the contoured surface. The decorative surfacing film comprises a substantially molecularly unoriented cast polymer film formed from a weatherable polymer, which film has pigments, such as colored pigments or reflective flakes, uniformly distributed therein.
Use of a cast polymer film is important in obtaining uniform distribution of the pigments within the film and enables the production of a high-quality decorative surfacing film with an appearance which closely simulates the high grade automotive paint finishes used on automobile body parts. Such pigmented, cast, weatherable films are suitable for deep draw molding, as will be explained below, and do not require the use of separate pigment layers in addition to a protective weatherable outer layer.
A shaped article as described above is made by placing into a mold having a contoured, three-dimensional molding surface, a preformed decorative surfacing film of the type described above. A moldable polymer is then introduced into the mold on one side of the surfacing film. The surfacing film is then molded into a contoured three-dimensional configuration conforming to the molding surface of said mold, while molding said polymer to form a shaped article with the decorative surfacing film adhered to the outer surface thereof.
The decorative surfacing film also includes a bonding layer formed of a thermoplastic thermoformable polymer, different from the cast film. The decorative surfacing film is placed into the mold with the bonding layer oriented inwardly away from the molding surface so as to become adhered to the moldable polymer.
Also disclosed herein is a method of making a structure such as an automobile body which has a uniform decorative outer surface, which is comprised of a set of interconnected shaped articles, each article being formed from a molded polymer material (and optionally from a plurality of different moldable polymer materials), and each article having a decorative surfacing film on the outer surface thereof presenting a surface appearance of high quality comparable to a high quality automobile paint finish. Each article in the set is preferably formed of a moldable polymer which is selected to provide the desired structural properties to the particular location in the assembled structure in which it is installed. At the same time, while the assembled structure may be formed from different structural polymer materials, it has an outer surface which is uniformly colored in accordance with a predetermined color scheme (single colored, multicolored, etc.).
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Ellison Thomas M.
Keith Brian M.
Alston & Bird LLP
Bahta Abraham
Jones Deborah
Rexam Industries Corp.
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