I'm having to deal with a difficult person -- a mold maker favorite ofmy client who likes to make me jump hoops to please him. (Actually he'snot such a favorite any more, because our common client now understandshow difficult he's being.) He's telling me something that might beaccurate, and might just be his way to make life difficult for me. Basically his story is that when metal is passing metal in a core/cavitythat they need 10 degrees draft between the two surfaces, otherwisethere is a high degree of danger that the mold will lock up at somepoint. I've got no special difficulty believing him, on the one hand,but I'm suspicious. I wouldn't have thought quite that much draft wouldbe necessary. I'm going to have to do some thinking about how toaccomplish it in the particular application I have. You can see thearea of the part by going to: have annotated the area in question. Any comments? Experiences tothe contrary? Doubtless I'll give him his requested draft anyway sincewe don't want to give him an excuse to do a poor job, but we're probablygoing to be moving to a different mold maker soon just because this guyis so difficult (not specifically because of this issue, but on a numberof different issues).TIAMark 'Sporky' StapletonWatermark Design, LLC

Ho Sporky,I usually get away with 5 degs for designs like that. Obviously the 5 degrees only needs to be wehre metal meets metal, so it doesnt affect the standard draft for the plastic sides. what natural angle does it work out to with the gap you have given hime between the 2 vertical faces?I have occasionally negotiated even smaller drafts with the toolmakers for those situations, but if there's no reason not to, I generally try to give them as much as possible as long as it doenst affect the design. Sounds like he may just be difficult, if he's not willing to compromise.Olaf

Mold maker blowing smoke at me?

Feb 20, 2005 41 Replies

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Dan Bovinich 21 years ago

Sporkman,

I looked again, and Black Dragon is correct on both points, eliminate feather edge and insert the area. You may be able to put a lesser angle shutoff (no less than .005" top-to-bottom angle) and maybe you can eliminate the feather edge.

Good eyes Black Dragon....

Dan

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Malcontent 21 years ago

With the addition of straight P/L locks, you can get away with much less than 5°. We do a lot of extremely small close tolerance multi-cavity medical molds that you'll never get 5° to work with.

Side Locks, X-Series, Guide Locks,Top Locks and Shuttle Lock sets all have straight alignment. My personal favorite is the Guide lock. The female locks can be custom fitted to pockets that don't match exactly.

Malcontent

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