Could aluminium tooling be better than steel?
A
Toolcraft Plastics product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jul 21, 2000
With the ever increasing pressures on both delivery times and costs, Toolcraft Plastics of Swindon have set out methods for the quick production of mould tooling using low cost materials.
With the ever increasing pressures on both delivery times and costs, Toolcraft Plastics of Swindon have set out methods for the quick production of mould tooling using low cost materials.
Designed primarily to support their own fast response plastics moulding facility tool production is now also available to others.
By correct choice of material grades, tools in aluminium alloys, capable of 100's of thousands of operations can be made about 30% cheaper than the equivalent steel product.
They are easier and faster to machine, with deliveries typically 50% of normal delivery times.
Also as aluminium conducts heat four times better than steel, tools run cooler, and can therefore be run faster, resulting ultimately in lower parts costs.
Polishing is also easier, for a high grade finish on the moulded components.
Toolcraft's long term experience enables them to predict areas of stress which where necessary can be strengthened with steel inserts.
For further extended life, and minimal cost increase of around 10 - 15% tools can be nickel cobalt coated to a Rockwell hardness of 55.
Fully equipped with modern CAD/CAM facility Toolcraft can work with customer's own tooling IGES/STL ( and other) files or design the mould from the component design files.
Final 'edge' comes with Toolcraft's ability to set up quickly and run the tools for trialing, prototypes, pre-production runs or full production in all the standard plastic materials.
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