TABLE OF CONTENTS Before starting a mould design, the designer should be in possession of the following information (some items of which have been mentioned previously).
An unambiguous fully detailed component drawing
Specifications of the moulding material including grade and colour
The moulding machine specifications
All the estimating details including any sketches
Tool specifications as follows:
Number of impressions
Type of mould e.g., two-plate, three-plate, split, side core, hot runner, etc.
Type of runner system
Type of gate
Method of de-gating
Use of robotics
Estimated cycle time
Never start a mould design without all the necessary information.
If an established design works well, don't embark on a totally new design if you can base your design on the established one.
The simpler the design the more reliable and efficient it will be.
Always sketch two or three alternative approaches to the design before committing yourself to the first one you think of.
Draw a sufficient number of views so that the design can be understood fully.
It is very difficult to explain in words alone how a mould is designed; we will therefore follow through a step-by-step design of a typical mould tool from start to finish which illustrates the procedure. In order to do this, we will consider a moulding that has to be produced on an eight-impression basis.
Note that in Chapter 9 the two-plate tool design is discussed in more detail.
For the sake of simplicity and clarity...
