Have your product’s plastic components mapped out in CAD but scratching your head on how to get the moulds made? Shopped around and found only extraordinarily long wait lists? At NDC Plastic Moulding, you’ll find the tooling design and manufacturing services you need to mould your vision on your schedule.
Our custom mould makers take your overall product design, break it down into required components, then create the required CNC-compatible files needed to machine your injection mould. Considering factors like component complexity and scale of production, we’ll optimise your tooling to match your manufacturing needs.
Let us write the rules for the tools you need to create custom components. Get in touch or book a meeting with our team.
Once designs have been finalised for required components, we can begin the precision engineering of your custom injection mould/s (also known as ‘tooling’). Our CNC machining expertise and access to the latest equipment enable us to provide precise, professional tool manufacturing services 100% in-house.
Send us a message or lock in a meeting with a tool making expert.
Has your product design evolved, requiring changes to its components? Slight defect in an otherwise functional mould? Sometimes our masters of mould machining can modify the size and shape of the mould’s cavities to accommodate design changes, or rectify minor structural issues, avoiding the cost and time involved in starting from scratch.
Tool’s down? We might be able to get it up and about again! Send us some details of your issue or arrange a one-on-one with a tooling technician today.
Depending on your project parameters, we can create multiple cavities on the same mould to scale up your output. Employing such efficiency-enhancing strategies means we can measure up to manufacturing metrics more quickly.
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The process for designing custom tooling typically involves several stages, including concept development, design and engineering, prototyping, testing, and final production. During the concept development stage, our design team works with the client to identify their specific needs and requirements. From there, we’ll create detailed design plans and 3D models, which will be used to create prototypes for testing and refinement. Once the final design has been approved, we’ll manufacture injection moulds ready for mass production.
In most cases, yes, we do all the tool design and manufacture 100% in -house. If an especially large injection mould is needed, we may recommend outsourcing to a specialised toolmaker. Our modern toolroom and injection moulding experts are well equipped to handle most tooling requests.
We use a range of CNC and manually operated machinery to precision engineer the finished mould. Most of our injection moulds are made from steel, although it’s possible to use aluminium. We start with a solid block of metal (or billet), creating one or more cavities in it using various cutting, milling and eroding tools. These cavities are filled with molten plastic during the injection moulding process.
Often, we’ll use a combination of technologies to create custom injection moulds. For example, for optimum results where an extra deep cavity is required, we might opt for spark erosion EDM. This requires machining a custom electrode (often copper) which creates an impression in the billet in its own shape. To engineer the electrode, we might use a combination of CNC milling and wirecut EDM, if any perfectly square corners are required.
Once the cavities are created, we’ll carry out manual processes like surface grinding the outer surface of the mould to ensure its completely flat.
As you can see, tooling design and production demand diverse skills and equipment. With NDC Plastics you can be confident that we’ll devise the most efficient and effect plan for creating custom tooling that meets your specifications and project requirements.
We’re keen to get working on a mould that will go from our toolroom ‘straight to the pool room!’ Send us a message, give us a call, or arrange a time for an obligation-free consultation with an expert.
