Method for making plastic parts

Claim 1

In a process for molding a unique, three-dimensional, multi-colored, solid plastic part for vehicular interior or exterior use, the steps comprising: providing a mold having a casting surface; providing an open-ended charge box; providing two or more colors of pigmented powder particles of thermoplastic material, each having a diameter in the range of 60 to 400 microns; and the multi-colored particles having varying degrees of light transmission to produce a three-dimensional surface effect after heat fusing; randomly mixing the multi-colored powder particles and depositing the random mixture into the charge box; casting the random mixture from the charge box onto a preheated mold surface to build up stacked nonpatterned layers of multi-colored particles having voids therebetween; heating the mold by a single heating step which is selected to cause marginal heat flow of the cast multi-colored particles to form non-patterned, color-blended fused fringe zones between each of the particles which fused fringe zones fill the voids between the multi-colored particles while retaining discrete particle cores to maintain each particle's central or original color concentration thereby forming the solid, three-dimensional, multi-colored plastic part with light transmissive properties; cooling the formed plastic part and removing the cooled plastic part from the mold.