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Prototype tooling

Prototype tooling sometimes called…

• Soft tooling
• Rapid tooling
• Pre production tooling
• Bridge tooling

Rapid tooling is ideal for small runs, for field testing, to prove designs and for market trials, cost effective for runs of 20 to 100 parts. Tool life is very dependant on the raw material moulded but often so successful that pre production runs up to 20,000 parts have been achieved.

Typically the “soft tools” are block inserts of zinc or aluminium, where cores and cavities can be high speed CNC machined, based on 3D models, or cast from solid models.

The casting of cavities and cores is particularly cost effective for complex curved shapes and detailed part surface texturing. A casting pattern can be fashioned by hand out of any modelling medium, or by more accurate means from 3D CAD data to stereo lithography ( SLA), laser sintering (SLS), or 3D printing methods. This method is very useful for reverse engineering where an existing product is simply used as the casting pattern.

The trade off, with soft tooling, is that the soft core and cavity cannot handle high injection pressures at high mould surface temperatures. On the plus side, soft tools are easily repaired and altered, so if design changers are likely then this can be attained at relatively low cost and short lead times. Typically costs and lead times range from 15 to 35 percent, to that of conventional hard tooling, the more complex the part shape the greater the savings.

Pictured are some examples of technical plastic parts moulded from soft tools.