Tooling for Plastic Molding

The tooling model supports single cavity and multi-cavity molds for single parts.

Molds can be machined out of the following types of material:

• P20 Tool Steel

• H13 Tool Steel

• Stainless Steel

• Carbon Steel

• Aluminum

• Epoxy

Note that Epoxy is not an option for the action and ejector box material.

Both catalog and custom mold bases are supported.

The Injection Molding tooling model aggregates costs in the following categories associated with hard tooling, and presents them as a bill of materials:

• Material costs: raw materials for core and cavity plates, ejector boxes, actions, and EDM carbon

• Standard purchased item costs: items such as ejector guide pins, locating rings, stop pins, sleeve pins, water hoses, etc.

• Labor costs: labor associated with machining, assembly, mold design, finishing/polishing, spotting, tryout, and CMM inspection

• Miscellaneous costs: heat treatment, plating, stress relief, texture, freight, markup/profit

The tooling model estimates the number of parts that can be produced with a given tool before it wears to the point that it needs to be replaced. Based on that estimate, the cost model determines the number of tools required to manufacture the production volume specified in the Production Scenario tab of the Cost Guide, and accounts for that number of tools in total hard tooling cost.

Tool-life estimation is based on part material, tool material, and tool coating type. For a given costing, either the formula Dependencies or Investment tab displays the number of tools assumed by tooling cost calculations.

See Tooling Cost for more information.