In 2003, a revolutionary additive metal fabrication technology was introduced to the North American market called Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS)1. Over the course of the past five years, this technology has gradually become better known to many companies with primary interest being the production of direct to metal parts versus inserts. […]
3M is world-renowned for its innovation. With more than 55,000 products, 30-plus core technologies and leadership in major markets, 3M serves as an example to other manufacturers of efficient, innovative product development. […]
There are three powerful steps to im-proving moldmaking power and those who have implemented these steps are well on the way to becoming the ultimate toolmakers in their industry. […]
The benefits for mold manufacturers who use digital manufacturing are plenty, but to name a few: uninterrupted production, the ability to validate geometry prior to incurring costs from wasted materials, the capability to recreate geometries of end of life products if the inventory is eliminated; and, of course, the reduction in cost over machining to [...]
Today there are many prototyping technologies to support the full development cycle of a product from initial idea to manufacturing full-scale parts to low-volume production. Read this brief overview about the advantages and disadvantages for two of the most popular additive technologies used for prototyping and production. With complementary strengths and weaknesses, one of these [...]
Transforming plastic part designs into rapid prototypes with full geometry has become an essential part of the moldmaking process for today’s mold builders. Nobody can afford to make mistakes up front, which will take big dollars to fix later. The majority of rapid prototyping involves the use of two common rapid prototyping processes: stereolithography (SLA) [...]
Inefficient use of CAD technology in industry wastes millions of dollars each year. It is vitally important that businesses have the tools to quantify the skills of members of staff using CAD to make sure that they are right for the role in question, and that the role in question is right for them. Companies [...]
Checking for Positive DraftOn occasion tool marks can be so deep that they reduce the draft or the polisher accidentally takes off the draft. The key is to always check for positive draft by putting a six-inch scale on the wall and comparing the angle it makes to the parting line. It takes just a [...]
If we consider the primary metal of steel, which is iron, there are a number of features that we can observe immediately about the metal: […]
Of all the tasks polishers face in the moldmaking trade, texture and its related problems are probably among the most challenging. Getting hand texturing to match up perfectly with acid bath texturing is a skill entirely unto itself, but with a few tricks of the trade, almost any polisher will be able to stand up [...]