As a one-stop shop for the design and manufacture of optical components, Fosta-Tek has become a leading source for military, safety and consumer lenses and industrial optics sourced in North America. Our integrated molding and coating operations result in economical solutions for high volume requirements.

Past noteworthy programs and achievements include:

Co-development with NASA of a plasma Superhardcoat for plastic lenses;

Co-development with GE of coatings to meet the NFPA fire safety standards for faceshields;

Design and production of key optical components required to bring Head-up Displays into the automotive and marine fields;

Manufacture of gas mask lenses for the US Army's new Apache helicopter mask for the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Design and production of M-40 gas mask lenses to meet Army requirements for prism correction and ballistic protection.

Development of birefringence free windows for the handheld scanner industry, enhancing scanner performance.

History
Our experience with designing and manufacturing plastic lenses and optics dates back to the 1960's. Much of the optical know-how, technology and processes employed at Fosta-Tek were developed by the original Foster Grant.

The original Foster Grant molding operation focused on manufacturing a variety of sunwear frames. The lenses at that time were made of glass. In the early 1970's Foster Grant introduced molded acrylic lenses to the trade and subsequently developed silicone hardcoats to protect the lenses from scratching. The current management team was very active in the engineering of these developments. By 1982, Foster Grant no longer manufactured glass lenses for eyewear. By the late 1980's Foster Grant had begun bringing its lense manufacturing technology into the safety and military markets.

We initiated operations in 1991 as Fosta-Tek through the purchase of substantial manufacturing assets and intellectual property from Foster Grant, including all operations related to the military and OEM optical business.

Today, our market focus is providing superior polymer-based optical products and solutions to industrial, military and OEM markets, including automotive, safety, medical, opto-electronic and consumer eyewear. Polymers employed include the primary optical thermoplastics - Polycarbonate, Lexan, Acrylic, PPC, PMMA and urethane; and optical thermosets - ADC, CR-39®, and PMMA.

We leverage our extensive experience with operations that integrate several polymer-based core capabilities: optical engineering and tool design, optical molding, optical coatings, and cast optical plastics.

We are located 50 miles west of Boston in Leominster, Massachusetts, well-noted as a pioneering region for the U.S. plastics industry and the site of the National Plastics Museum.

No other contract manufacturer of polymer-based transparent components has as much to offer OEMs!

Operations
With a staff of over 100 dedicated employees, we operate from 70,000 square feet of production and office space. Production operations include a full-service machine shop, a molding department operating 18 presses, a coating department that includes three coating lines, two high vacuum chambers and a plasma chamber, and a thermoset casting department for manufacturing high quality optical filters from ADC/CR-39®.

Materials
In our molding and coating operations we specialize in polycarbonate and acrylic(PMMA) based polymers and co-polymers.

In our cast resin department we manufacture a high quality optical material called Allyl Diglycol Carbonate(ADC), often referred to as CR-39® plastic.