Plastic exterior products in a variety of colors and with a high quality sense of touch are increasingly popular for electronic parts, automobile parts and the like. Plastic exterior products can be formed of a resin composition including a thermoplastic resin and metal particles distributed therein to give a metal-like texture to the product.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2001-262003 and 2007-137963 discuss adding metal particles to a plastic resin, but the metal-like texture did not appear in an actual experiment. Also, there is a problem in that a flow mark or a weld line is formed during an injection molding process.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 1995-196901 discusses adding a metal microplate having an average aspect ratio (average thickness/average particle diameter) of about 1/100 to about 1/8 obtained through a punching process to a resin to provide a metal-like texture. This process, however, is also limited by formation of a weld line.