Polycarbonate From Bayer MaterialScience Receives A Standing Ovation From Legacy Seating For Quality, Design and Manufacturing Flexibility

November 19, 2009 - Pittsburgh, PA — Bayer MaterialScience LLC is enabling Legacy Seating to stand out in the crowd of companies offering stylish, comfortable seating for high-end events, hotels and restaurants with an affordable yet sleek banquet chair that can withstand rugged use inside as well as outdoors.

 Legacy Seating’s The Mirage® chair design is a modern departure from the classic Louis XV silhouette, made possible with Makrolon® polycarbonate. The Mirage makes an entrance with its sleek, organic design that is comfortable for people of all sizes. Its high optical clarity helps set the mood with a glass-like appearance that reflects light for warm ambiance and added color.

From the beginning, Makrolon®’s unique properties helped the design team at Legacy Seating and the manufacturer, Commercial Plastics, achieve the look and feel of luxury without compromising strength. The Mirage has unique arches, seat geometries and other styling lines, all in a rugged, seamless, one-piece construction.

Commercial Plastics’ fully automated manufacturing facility produces the chairs using a single cavity mold for ease of processing and enhanced aesthetics. With Makrolon®’s thermal advantages over other engineered materials, the overall cycle time is reduced. The material’s excellent processability, coupled with extensive knowledge from Bayer’s processing experts, has dramatically reduced the reject rates. The customer has reported a 33 to 50 percent reduction in rejects versus previous materials, which has reduced the amount of regrind being introduced back into the process. All secondary operations are done within the cycle including routing off the gate with custom fixtures and adhering custom two-piece, non-marking polyurethane leg end-caps.
 
For Legacy Seating’s custom solutions, Makrolon® is a material well-suited for the development of chairs with custom labels, branding or logos and can easily incorporate custom colors without compromising the material’s performance or look. Built-in UV protection helps protect the Mirage from damaging sunlight, adding flexibility for a wide range of event locations.

“Makrolon® is the Cadillac of plastics when it comes to performance, and by far delivers the best value to us, which we are able to pass along to our customers,” said Jim Watters, president of Legacy Seating and Mirage designer/inventor. “We plan to use Makrolon® throughout our product family based on its outstanding manufacturability and durability backed by the expertise and guidance from the team at Bayer MaterialScience. We’re thrilled to bring our customers a premium offering at a value price point.”

Watters added that the Makrolon® material is built to last, free of the splay marks, parting lines, crazing and fogginess that can plague other plastic seating materials after repeated use.

“The Mirage is a great example of how Makrolon® polycarbonate enables designers to dream and then have the unencumbered ability to deliver on their vision,” said Kevin Dunay, consumer market segment leader, Bayer MaterialScience LLC.  “Design freedom is key to differentiating offerings.”

Bayer MaterialScience LLC is one of the leading producers of polymers and high-performance plastics in North America and is part of the global Bayer MaterialScience business with nearly 15,100 employees at 30 sites around the world and 2008 sales of 9.7 billion euros. Business activities are focused on the manufacture of high-tech polymer materials and the development of innovative solutions for products used in many areas of daily life. The main segments served are the automotive, electrical and electronics, construction, medical, and sports and leisure industries.

Legacy Seating, based in Mundelein, Ill., is creator of The Mirage and partners with retailers, event and hospitality distributors and party rental enterprises to bring the Mirage to customers across the nation and around the world. For more information about Legacy Seating, visit www.miragechairusa.com.
 
Commercial Plastics, also based in Mundelein, Ill., is an industry leader in plastic design and processing. For more information about Commercial Plastics, visit www.ecommercialplastics.com.