What is mold?
Talking about mold, there are various kinds of similar sayings, mould, tools, tooling, presses, dies and matrix, etc.
Actually, there are several kinds of main molds for industrial use.
- Plastic Molds (also called plastic injection molds, plastic tooling, Blow molds, or extrusion molding,)
- Metal Stamping Dies (also called stamping tools, stamping presses, press tools, press dies, progressive dies, progressive tools, transfer dies, and compound dies)
- Die Casting Molds (also called casting molds, forging dies, or die-casting)
Plastic molds are used for making plastic parts.
Metal stamping dies and die-casting molds are used for making metal parts.
There is slightly a difference between them. Metal stamping dies are used to cut and make thin metal parts from sheet metal; Die casting molds are like plastic molds that can make various kinds of shapes of parts according to the design of casting molds.
Before making the mold, we sometimes need to make a prototype or mockup to see the shape of the mold. It is like a primary sample of mold. As we need to check if any sizes or structures need to be adjusted or modified, then we may start to make the formal mold.
Except for plastic parts and metal parts, there are also some other molds that are used to make wood parts, silicone parts, or even food or fabric pieces. But they are mainly used for daily consumer products, not industrial products.
These molds, tools, and dies can all be used for large-quantity bulk production with high efficiency. There’s why molds exist.
Mold Components and Die Components
Molds, tools, and Dies are composed of components. So molds and dies components are essential parts for the molds.
How to design the molds is advanced work. Mechanical mold designers are the key resources of a company. A good mold design can make the subsequent parts and product production smooth.
After the molds are designed, we need to make the molds and make the mold components.
There are various kinds of mold components. Mostly we knew were core and cavities, punches and dies, ejector pins and sleeves, guide pins and bushings, fasteners, and bolts, blocks and plates, upper mold and lower mold, springs, etc.
In modern molds, there are also some electronic parts used in the molds, like sensors. They can make the molded parts production automatically run with higher efficiency.
Core and cavities are mainly used for plastic injection molds. Punches and die inserts are mainly used for metal stamping dies. Actually, they are similar functions and core components of a mold.
Other mold components are common components according to the mold design and usage.
As molds are used to produce various kinds of industrial and consumer products in daily use everywhere, molds are a huge market. There are some mold standards formulated by some countries. So there are some standard mold components. Like Japan Misumi Standard parts, and Germany ISO/DIN Standard parts. Some mold parts manufacturers mainly produce these kinds of standard parts.
And there are also many custom mold parts. Custom mold components are mainly used in the new products molds or special products molds that can not be manufactured through standard molds. So there are also some custom mold components manufacturers.
Usually, standard mold parts have stock in the market, as there are standard sizes. But custom mold parts need to be manufactured according to custom drawings from mold and die designers. So there is no stock for them. And custom mold parts are usually in small quantities or even 1 piece, they can not be manufactured in large quantities like standard parts.
So there’s all about mold and die components. Welcome to contact us to discuss more.
