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Which material is the best for injection mold tooling?

2fprototypes

Plastic
Joined
May 11, 2020
As we know, choosing a suitable material for injection mold tooling is important for the overall production, including mold service life, economy, etc.

My company usually choose steel to make the mold, like P20 steel, #45 steel, H13 steel, etc. I heard someone may use aluminum as the mold materials. We tried aluminum before but the aluminum is more limited. It is lower hardness and easy to wear out after a few thousand of production cycles.

All in all, if considering the small scale production, aluminum is a cost-effective choice and steel mold is more suitable on mass production. Which material is you guys prefer? Which steel, or aluminum?
 
Hi 2Fprototypes:
Choosing a suitable material depends on what you hope to do with it.
Hard materials...long service life
Tough materials...resistant to abuse
Wear resistant materials...long service life
Thermally conductive materials...short cycle time.

Only you can pick exactly what you need for every application.
Only experience can guide you about which to choose for a given situation.
A good mold designer will make all those decisions for you, so find a good mold designer and use what they recommend.

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
 
I second what Marcus said. It depends what the tool is expected to make, run size, and how you want to machine the cavities.

If I want to machine the cavities directly on the milling machine (either manual or CNC) I'll use 7075 aluminum or one to the brand name equivalents, Fortal or QC-7. They cut nice and are reasonably hard, about Rc 30 and will run multi thousands of shots. Being soft they will deform if they close on a part or flash. 7075 is not very weldable.

If I need harder I will go to tool steel either A-2 or S-7. A-2 is harder, up to Rc 60, but S-7 is more crack resistance . H-13 was used a lot for die casting tools because it retains its hardness at high heat, but it barely gets to Rc 50 and I don't see any advantage for plastic molding.

I personally don't have any use for P-20. It's only advantage is it sticks to the grinder chuck where 7075 won't. It isn't any harder than 7075 but cuts a lot slower.

That's my two cents. Other will have different opinions.
Dennis
 
I saw it and WINCED!

If I see "Plastic", China, and only 1 post-- guilty until proven innocent.

You mean like this ?

The ordeal of cold water has a precedent in the Code of Ur-Nammu and the Code of Hammurabi, under which a man accused of sorcery was to be submerged in a stream and acquitted if he survived. The practice was also set out in Frankish law but was abolished by Louis the Pious in 829. The practice reappeared in the Late Middle Ages: in the Dreieicher Wildbann of 1338, a man accused of poaching was to be submerged in a barrel three times and to be considered innocent if he sank, and guilty if he floated.


:D
 
You mean like this ?

The ordeal of cold water has a precedent in the Code of Ur-Nammu and the Code of Hammurabi, under which a man accused of sorcery was to be submerged in a stream and acquitted if he survived. The practice was also set out in Frankish law but was abolished by Louis the Pious in 829. The practice reappeared in the Late Middle Ages: in the Dreieicher Wildbann of 1338, a man accused of poaching was to be submerged in a barrel three times and to be considered innocent if he sank, and guilty if he floated.


:D

Huh, guess that would cut down on lawyer costs and court fees.........

Maybe we should apply that concept toward spammers.
We ban you first and if you manage to crawl back we, uh, ban you again..... :D
 
actually its a question that might open a good discussion for people working in that field. its in good english and i cant detect any sales pitch. btw, wouldnt it be interessting to have some e.g. japanese guys on the forum?
 
actually its a question that might open a good discussion for people working in that field. its in good english and i cant detect any sales pitch. btw, wouldnt it be interessting to have some e.g. japanese guys on the forum?

OP is from CHINA not JAPAN.
The subject has been hashed to death, even if OP was not a spammer (which the other posts from them do show that they are) the OP is too LAZY to search the archives for very good info.
 
To the guy that said H13 has no use. O used to make tools of 52-54 HRC from H13. It’s a dream of a tool steel to work with. Like butter when it’s soft, yet grinds easy when hard. Even with poor wheels. I’ve made mainly medical grade tools. And it is an industry choice.

And to the guy that said hard D2, I’m with you on that if the production team are monkeys and can’t be trusted with Ali tooling!! Although it is painful to machine/ grind when hard. Even with the suggested mid-range tooling.

My personal favourite is stavax. Pretty corrosion resistant and stable. yet cuts like it doesn’t know it’s 13% chrome.

So to the OP question. Steel is my preference, but modern EDMs can cut ALi unbelievably fast, it makes it appealing.
 
Based on all the molds we worked on that were made in China, I would say I have a firm belief as to where all the "cash for clunkers" car bodies went to.
 








 
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