What is a standard mold base? This seems like an easy question requiring a short answer. A standard mold base is an off-the-shelf base ready to be machined to your specifications. Easy enough, but when you really sit down and think about it, it’s much more than that. It is not such an easy question. [...]
Designing a product for high production tooling involves considerations that must be closely evaluated: gating location, part ejection, wall thickness, material flow characteristics, cycle time, hot runner feasibility and assembly at high rates. […]
Hot runner systems are a key component of the multi-cavity injection mold. Ironically, hot runners are probably the least understood mold component from the moldmakers’ perspective. […]
Years ago, in the days of drafting boards and electric erasers, there was a mold design department where a veteran lead designer welcomed a young new member to the design staff. An engineering grad with sufficient years of mold design experience, the new designer was surprised when on his first mold assignment, […]
Rotating cores are the most common solution to this problem. This is one of the most common setups. The rotating core features a gear, bearing journals and a retracting thread, in addition to the molding thread. The basic operation is to rotate the core and retract it at the same time and at the same [...]
The collapsible core offers some unique advantages to the traditional rotating core. The concept of the collapsible core is to first collapse the core to a small enough size to be able to clear all the molded features of the piece part, and then retract the core from the molded part. It sounds and looks [...]
The applications of a flash-free collapsible core are nothing short of incredible. Undercuts, O ring grooves, tabs, ribs, bosses, locking tabs, and threads are easily produced. Straight or even back-tapered bores are no problem. […]
Reverse engineering or digitizing a physical part is a critical task for any mold and pattern shop. Most customers say that they design all of their parts on a CAD system; […]
RP is basically a visual aid that allows the moldmaker to evaluate the design and know it is correct before the process moves to the hard tooling stage. […]
Global competition is having an ever-increasing impact on almost every industry in existence today – increasing the need to supply consumers with new products rapidly. It is a well-known fact that the first manufacturer to introduce a new product in demand will see the greatest payback. In addition, consumers are demanding additional product customization. This [...]