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Path: Sourcing News & Advice
>> Import from
China Advice >> Why does making a mold in China
take a month?

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Why does making a mold in China take a month?

Posted: September 03, 2014

by Renaud Anjoran

Last week I wrote about the
cost of making a mold. This week I am addressing another common question
from clients: why does it generally take about one month?

The length of time it takes to produce a mold tool depends on a number of
factors. Primarily, the more complex the part, the longer it takes to
manufacture the mold. Other factors to take into account are the size of the
part to be molding, and the number of cavities within the tool.

The basic parts of a mold tool
are:

Bolster or support block, this allows the tool to be fitted to the
injection molding machine.

The core and cavity, this is where the shape of the part to be molded is
machined — the time to generate this part of the tool depends on how complex
the part is, as mentioned above.

Injection system — includes the locating ring, sprue, sprue bush, and the
runner system which is machined into the mold to allow the part to be filled
correctly.

Cooling system – the tool needs to be maintained at an optimum temperature
for the injection process to function at its best, however once the molten
plastic has been injected into the tool, it needs to be cooled down before
being ejected.

Ejector system — this comprises of the ejector housing, ejector plate,
ejector pins, ejector return pins, and the spur puller pin. All ejector pins
need to be positioned so that the part is pushed out of the tool
cleanly.

From a manufacturing point of view, a number of different machines and
processes are used. And an element of hand finishing goes into every tool. If we
focus on just the core and cavity, the steps would include:

Initial rough shape would be created from CNC machining centre or
CNC mill

Electrical Discharge Machining commonly known as EDM is then normally used
to produce the final shape and dimensions of the part required. The
basic EDM principle is where an electrical spark is created between an
electrode that has been machined to a specific shape, and the work piece. The
electrical spark is so hot (up to 12,000 Deg C) that is melts virtually
everything with the idea being that the work piece takes on the shape of the
electrode. The key thing is to the control the spark so that it only affects a
very small amount of the work piece at a time. Accuracy of EDM can be
controlled to 0.0025 mm.

Once the shape has been generated to the correct dimensions, the next
stage is the surface finish; this could include final grinding,
texturing, sand blasting, shot peening, or hand polishing.

One of our engineers tells me of a time during a factory visit (inspecting a
set of tools for a client) where he witnessed a worker sitting on a wooden stool
inside a tool cavity, hand polishing the surface. When our engineer asked
how long the worker had been polishing that tool, he was told this would require
1 week to complete — just hand polishing (bearing in mind the size of the tool
for him to be sitting inside it!)

Beyond the core and cavity, there are many other items that go into making a
mold tool. And machining, finishing, polishing and assembly of a tool just takes
time.

Renaud
Anjoran has been managing his quality assurance agency (Sofeast Ltd) since 2006.
In addition, a passion for improving the way people work has pushed him to
launch a consultancy to improve factories and a web application to manage the
purchasing process. He writes advice for importers on qualityinspection.org.

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