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 [...]
Whatever the item a company intends to produce, creating a prototype is crucial to the design process. Moldmakers would be wise to stay on top of technology developments and consider their use to improve the service they provide. Following are four reasons why prototyping is important. […]
A moldmaker typically creates simple subplates with dozens, even hundreds, of holes that must be drilled, bored and tapped. Using conventional CAM to program all of these features for manufacturing on a CNC mill could take several hours. Today, he can import a model of the subplate from his CAD program, bring it into the [...]
Stereolithography is a 3-D layering manufacturing process that applies ultraviolet lasers to cure liquid photopolymer resins to produce solid, plastic, 3-D objects that simulate properties of polyethylene, polypropylene and polycarbonate materials. […]
Laser scanning has demonstrated the ability to address all of these challenges. Laser scanning systems work by projecting a line of laser light onto surfaces while built-in arrays continuously triangulate the changing distance and profile of the laser line as it sweeps along, enabling the object to be accurately digitized in 3-D. […]
“Radical” is not a word one expects to hear from a plastic injection molding company. Yet, it pops up more than once in conversation with Steven, CAD/CAM application engineer from First-rate Mold company. […]
More mold work going overseas may bring manufacturing cost savings, but it opens up the possibility of intellectual property (IP) being compromised. Fortunately there are ways to protect IP—some more efficient than others. This article will discuss how to best protect your shop’s IP. […]