METALLIZED CUTLERY AND TABLEWARE

摘要

A plastic cutlery item (10, 20, 30), fabricated primarily from a plastic material, such as polystyrene, having a metallic coating (14, 24, 34) that imparts to the cutlery item the appearance of metal cutlery or silverware. The plastic cutlery or tableware items are molded using traditional injection molding techniques, and subjected to a vacuum metallizing process in an individualized non-contiguous manner, where a thin metallic layer is deposited on at least one of their surfaces. In the most preferred embodiment of the invention the plastic cutlery or items are molded from a light-transmitting grade of Polystyrene resin and are coated with a thin stainless steel layer through vacuum sputtering deposition on only one of the surfaces.