Home / Manufacturing / Tooling
Manufacturing · 04
The Tool Shop, and What 15–40 Days Actually Covers
A mould is designed, cut, fitted, tried and corrected. The days are in the corrections, not the machining.
The Sequence
- Design — 3–5 days: parting line, gate, ejection, cooling, and the tolerance stack.
- Steel and machining — 10–20 days, depending on the number of slides and the polish.
- Fitting and trial (T0) — 3–5 days: the first shots, in-house.
- Correction and T1 — 5–10 days: the changes the trial asked for.
What Changes the Number
An unscrewing thread adds a mechanism and 30–45 % to that part. A mirror polish on a clear part adds days of hand work. A two-cavity tool is not twice the price of one cavity, but it is not far off in time.
Ownership
A tool paid for by the customer belongs to the customer. It stays in the shop for their production and can be shipped or scrapped on instruction. That is written into the NDA, not left to goodwill.
What to Send
A drawing or 3D file, the quantity for the first year, and the finish. Without the quantity we can only quote a range, because the cavity count is a volume decision.
Want a Tooling Band Before the Drawing?
The estimator takes a part count and a size.