Looking for a book on mold design with SolidWorks

In the search bar up on the right hand side of the screen, if you are using google online, type mold design in search and hit the search group button. You will find lots of information. I am not trying to be rude or a smart ass, but this is the best way to start because lots of other people have asked.

I was hoping for recommendations of good books, or at least those that others have found useful. But thatnks for the search engine tutorial anyway.

I am not aware at this moment of Mold Design books specifically for SolidWorks. It is more about knowing mold design and knowing SolidWorks seperately and then bringing the knowledge together. If you don't no mold design then you will need a mold design book that does not include SolidWorks info. SolidWorks has info on how to split a part or create a cavity but that is included in the tutorial. I don't have a specific book at this time and I have been doing mold design for 6 years. But I understand mold design and SoldiWorks so the only thing I get from time to time is the guidlines for a specific material.

Wayne Tiffany and John Layne posted this one a while back.

Engineering Polymers, Part and Mold Design, Thermoplastics, A Design Guide, put out by Bayer MaterialScience.

It's 7 chapters entitled:

1. Part design process: concept to finished part
2. General design
3. Structural design
4. Design for assy
5. Machining & finishing
6. Painting, plating, & decorating
7. Mold design

For those of us that don't design plastic parts but once every 5 years, and then have a molder really do the design from that point, it's a good resource to understanding the considerations in this type of application. At least you would have some understanding of the terminology, etc.

I received a hard copy sent via snail mail just for entering my information at

Keith

Did anybody click on Mr. Huber's link from his initial post? I don't think he needs help with Mold design per se.... he's looking for particulars regarding SW and mold design. Sorry I can't help...

Mike Tripoli

No I did not. Guess he knows mold stuff. Still I wanted to post that inforamation for other users.

Since Moldflow Xpress was introduced for most of us in Solidworks 2005, I don't believe there is much more than the help files for that information. Perhaps something more exists at

As for the basic mold tools which SW2005 has, I've heard SW2006 will be more of what mold people want, something about multiple entries or moving mold pieces allowing for more intricate pieces. When I took the training involving mold stuff, it was a lot of surface stuff, splitting things and extending surfaces, seemed like a pain. Maybe that's why there are add-on mold packages.

Keith

surface stuff, splitting things and extending surfaces, seemed like a pain. Maybe that's why there are add-on mold packages.

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Do any of them help with that kind of stuff, or are they component libraries?

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The help files discuss the surface stuff as do training manuals, but no component libraries that I'm aware of.

"M.D." wrote in news:W snipped-for-privacy@myeastern.com:

Just to give you some incremental hints ( a brain dump on this subject would be too much), but for shutoff surfaces, don't try to use the SW built in tools. It will too often give, well, "entertaining" results, assuming you have a good sense of humor about that kind of thing.

The usual tools for shut offs (for me anyway) are...

- "delete hole" This is for the case where you just want to fill in the existing surface. It's kind of a hidden command. There is no icon or menu item for it (except that it works like a portion of the "untrim" tool), you will only see it if you select the edge of a closed loop on a surface and try to delete it. It will first ask you if you are trying to delete the surface feature or the hole in the surface. It fills in the hole with the underlying brep.

- "planar surface". it should be obvious when this is appropriate.

- "fill surface". for basically any simple shutoff situation not covered by the above two.

- if you have to do complex shutoffs, you'll wind up using extruded, lofted and ruled surfaces, of course along with trim, extend and knit.

Good luck,

Matt

Hi Mike,

Thanks for checking out my web site. You're right, I'm pretty comfortable with mold design, just want to get up to speed on all of the tricks to SolidWorks. So far, I'm not impressed. I tried to create a shut off surface in a part opening that breaks out into two planar surfaces that are at an angle to each other. It should have been very simple. The surface "wrinkled" where the two planes intersect. I was able to create a core, delete and patch a face, but had no luck using the new mold tools creating the cavity. I imported the part into a new file, extruded a boss on the two planar surfaces, away from the cavity direction, and used that lump to create a cavity in assembly mode. I think it should have been easier. My base part is fairly simple, 93 features, but takes up too much time rebuilding. I'm using a 3.2 GHz computer with 1 Gb of RAM, so it shouldn't be too bad. I find the SolidWorks help files, and error messages, to be lacking. It seems that there is very often a work-around when SolidWorks doesn't want to do its job, but it usually requires a workaround, and I find that disappointing too. So, I was hoping I could buy a book to make me smarter about using Solidworks.

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. I ordered a book by David Murray called "Inside SolidWorks 2003". I've heard some good things about it, and it does cover some mold design. Once I read it, I'll post my opinion here, if anyone is interested.

Thanks again,

Rocky