5 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Mold Supplier

A reliable and highly professional mold supplier is necessary for getting the best mold making supplies. A company should be able to provide a complete product line of mold manufacturing products to meet customer expectations. They should contain a wide range of mold making materials to achieve any need or specific application.

View Details

When buying mold making supplies online, you should be careful. You must understand exactly what you are buying for your productivity. Remember, only price and on-time delivery are not enough to get the best deal mold. This is a more complicated process than part size, steel type or production location.

In this article, we will explain these important factors that should be considered when choosing a mold supplier. It can provide you with the most value-for-money service.

1. What is the purpose of injection molds?

When the mold can dissipate heat, the melted plastic heats up faster, which will encourage a faster cycle time. You need to understand what you expect from the mold maker. You should find a mold supplier that can accurately plan the melt delivery system and cooling system, which can help reduce cycle time and waste. This will help save money.

In addition to the size of the mold, several sliding motions, steel type, and tool position all affect the cost and performance of the mold. Therefore, make sure that your mold supplier can prove that the fees you paid are reasonable.

2. Did you pay the supplier at the right time?

Remember, paying your mold suppliers in time can reduce your chances of spending more on the project. In this case, you should have a precise dialogue with your mold supplier to negotiate cost reductions in order to pay as soon as possible or in time. This will help reduce costs.

3. How much does a mold cost?

This is one of the most common questions everyone asks their mold suppliers. The actual mold means the most important expense in the upfront manufacturing cost. Make sure your supplier will give you the final price tag.

4. Does your mold supplier meet your exact needs?

Unfortunately, this may happen, and your mold supplier may be in the mold building business. Therefore, consider a financially healthy supplier and maintain a culture that enables employees to invest in the future through equipment and training programs, and have a development plan in place. This can help you get your project in time without any hassle from your mold supplier.

5. How to confirm that you have selected the correct supplier?

This is the key part. Ensure that your supplier is highly experienced and able to deliver quality mold manufacturing supplies. They must have a good position in the market. In short, you should be more objective in the decision-making process, which will give you a quantitative reason to choose one supplier over another.

For more information, please visit Yihua Mould.

Most importantly, they should provide their customers with a wide range of molds, such as plastic injection molds, metal injection molds, die casting molds, investment casting molds, extrusion molds, and sheet metal molds.

In addition, your mold supplier should provide low-cost local production molds and high-quality export molds for your project. Whether you need a prototype mold for short-term production or a mass production mold for millions of lenses, they should have enough capacity to handle it.

Precision molding is a production process that uses more precise techniques and processes to make molds and parts than typical injection molding. If you want to ensure there are no air leaks between two molded parts or there are no visible seal gap lines, you need precision molding.

The difference between a typical injection molded part and a precision molded part is the tolerance or range of acceptable dimensional variation: while most injection molded parts have tolerances of +/- .005", precision molded parts have tolerances of +/- .002" and +/- .001" (or less in some cases).

If your project requires high-precision parts that require precision molding, before you look for the proper manufacturer to produce them, precision molding supplier Shengqi tells you that the following 3 questions you need to figure out can save you a lot of time and money. 

1. Are you sure which areas of the mold need precision?

Because precision molding is more expensive than typical injection molding, determine which areas of the part require tight tolerances and whether those tolerances can be achieved with injection molding before moving forward. For example, a surgical handle may only require precision for the part attached to the pin, not the entire handle.

Get a handle on your project needs first and identify the parts and components that require high precision, which will effectively ensure that you do not waste money where it is not necessary.

2. Have you chosen a plastic material with low shrinkage?

The plastic material you choose for your part can greatly impact whether you can perform precision molding. For example, polypropylene has a shrinkage range of +/- .014" to +/- .022", with an average of +/- .018". This is an extensive shrinkage range, making it difficult to achieve specific tolerances. If you are molding toothbrushes (usually polypropylene), dealing with shrinkage is not a big issue because it works fine whether the toothbrush is slightly larger or smaller than its counterpart. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) - another common thermoplastic polymer - has a much narrower average shrinkage of +/- 0.006. This gives you a better chance of achieving tighter tolerances. However, it won't achieve the +/- .001" or +/- .002" tolerances required for precision parts.

One way to achieve high tolerances with plastic materials is to add glass or other filler resins (such as carbon fiber or mica) to the material. This can minimize shrinkage and warpage by providing more structure to the material. For example, suppose you include long glass fibers in a polymer material. In that case, the part will shrink more perpendicular to those fibers. 

3. Can the mold maker choose a high-precision mold?

To manufacture high-precision parts, you first need high-precision tooling. Accurate tooling ensures accuracy and consistency in each part. Therefore, if you are after high-precision of parts, choosing a mold maker who understands the slow and steady process of making high-precision tools is essential. Sometimes we may choose a mold maker that makes fast molds for the sake of being fast, but this may not be the best choice for you if you are looking for precision because the goal of fast molds is to complete the mold quickly but not necessarily accurately. 

Shengqi is a professional mold and parts manufacturer with many years of experience in precision molding. We are happy to answer any questions you may have about precision molding. You can contact us regarding these questions, or if you have a project that requires precision molding services, feel free to contact us. We will be sure to provide you with satisfactory service.

The company is the world’s best precision mold parts supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.