How do you get a ready-to-go mold? Obviously, it starts with good design with no broken rules. It must be cut properly. It must be assembled properly. Checks must be made to ensure that all items function as designed, clearances are proper and water lines are correct based on flow.

Then the mold must be challenged with what is called a rigorous mold tryout, which sounds pretty formidable, but actually is the simplest way to try out a mold. Ultimately, everyone benefits—especially the moldmaker who wants to get paid and doesn’t want problem molds coming back to haunt him.

Robust molds mean more business for and from your customer. All of these things happen if the mold is given a wringing out early on. If you were a NASCAR fan you wouldn’t expect to put a car together, start it up, rev the engine a few times, drive around the block and expect to put it directly into a race. Obviously it must be trialed. It must be pushed harder than it is going to be used in the race. It must be tweaked and finalized so that on race day it is ready to go and not just built to print and sent off to the track.

What are the principles of a rigorous tryout? The rigorous concept is to challenge a mold early and avoid problems in production. You will treat the plastic in accordance with manufacturer’s recommendations. In other words, you are not going to do anything bad to the material like overheat it. This means that when you try out a mold, you must set everything as conservatively as possible.