Yes, we offer a production tooling option called on-demand manufacturing. This tooling option provides several benefits: lower piece part price, multi-cavity capabilities, guaranteed tooling for the life of the project (we will cut a new tool if it wears out), and first article inspections.

Tough Black (Loctite Henkel 3843) and Ceramic-Filled (BASF 3280) are two new advanced photopolymer materials now available for 3D printing.

In most cases, we can maintain a machining tolerance of +/- 0.003 in. (0.08mm) with an included resin tolerance that can be greater than but no less than +/- 0.002 in./in. (0.002mm/mm).

CS Tool Engineering   ♦   P.O. Box 210-K   ♦   251 West Cherry Street   ♦   Cedar Springs, MI 49319Phone (616)-696-0940   ♦   Email cste@cste.comWebsite design and hosting by Creative Technology Corp

In its conventional form, standard machining requires the manual use of lathes, milling machines and drill presses. With advanced technology, CNC machining has become the predominant means of creating more complex and accurate molds, while still using standard machining methods. With CNC, computers are used to control the movement and operation of the mills, lathes, and other cutting machines.

Overmolding and insert molding are two-part injection molding processes where one material is overlaid onto a second substrate part or metal insert to create a single component.

Injection molding is plastic manufacturing process that can produce high quality parts at scale. It's typically used for low- to high-volume production but our aluminum tooling can also make prototyping runs economical.

A single plastic injection mold can have one cavity, producing one part at a time, to multiple cavities for extremely high-production molds (like those for bottle caps) that can have 100 plus cavities.

We have wide selection of more than 100 thermoplastic and thermoset materials. And if you're looking for alternative material options, check out our guide to resin substitutes for ABS, PC, PP, and other commonly molded plastics.

Injection Molding ExpertiseWe'll work with you throughout the course of your project to help you quickly move from prototyping to production, including finishing options and inspection reporting.

Our helpful design aid demonstrates part features that are too thin or too thick, bad bosses, right and wrong ribs, and other considerations to be mindful of while designing parts for injection molding.

Injection molding is widely used for plastic part production in medical, consumer, and automotive industries. Typical parts include:

Unmatched Lead TimesReduce your product development cycle by weeks—sometimes months—and bridge to production with injection-molded parts within days. Some injection molding orders can ship in as fast as 1 day.

Copper alloy inserts are sometimes used in areas of the mold that require fast heat removal. This can reduce cycle time and improve the aesthetic quality of the part.

We have two unique offers to meet your needs wherever you are in the product lifecycle. Our prototype injection molding process helps you cut product development cycles by weeks—sometimes months—and bridge to production with injection-molded parts within days. Our On-demand Manufacturing process is designed to meet your production needs, and helps you qualify parts quickly to seamlessly transition into production with scientific molding, in-process CMM inspections with GD&T, and a full suite of secondary operations to make sure that your parts show up and perform as expected.

Because of the initial capital investment in tooling, injection molding makes sense for higher volumes of parts. Our mold cost starts at $1,495 and will vary depending on part geometry and complexity. Other factors that will impact injection molding cost are lead times and material.

A mold is usually designed so that the molded part reliably remains on the B half of the mold when it opens. The runner and the sprue are drawn out of the A half. The molded part then falls freely when ejected from the B half.

Plastic injection molds are typically constructed from hardened or pre-hardened steel, aluminum, and/or beryllium-copper alloy. Steel molds cost more, but are often preferred because of their high durability. Hardened steel molds are heat treated after machining, and they are by far superior in terms of wear resistance and lifespan.

We do quoting a little differently. When you request an injection molding quote, you'll not only receive accurate pricing, but also a manufacturing analysis—within just a few hours. Our online quoting platform also provides you with gate and ejector pin layouts and a price curve tool to help select the best tooling option for your project.

In modern CNC systems, the mold design and manufacturing processes are both highly automated. The mold’s mechanical dimensions are defined using computer-aided design (CAD) software, and then translated into manufacturing instructions by computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software. “Post processor” software then transforms these instructions into the specific commands necessary for each machine used in creating the mold. The resulting commands are then loaded into the CNC machine.

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Many steel molds are designed to process well over a million parts during their lifetime. For lower volumes, pre-hardened steel molds provide a less wear-resistant and less expensive option.

We combine scientific (or decoupled) molding techniques, which optimize and lock in processing parameters to ensure part consistency—with extra attention paid to critical-to-quality dimensions using our proprietary automated CMM process. Plus, with every order you'll get:

Plastic injection molding is a manufacturing process where resin in a barrel is heated to a molten state, then shot into a mold to form a final production-grade thermoplastic part.

Make the move from prototyping to on-demand manufacturing for affordable, high-quality molded parts within days. Better yet, your prototyping tool is free once you shift to an on-demand manufacturing tool. Working with a single supplier that provides free design consultation services also massively speeds up the manufacturing process, allowing for greater supply chain flexibility, more consistent parts, and making qualification a breeze.

This complete reference guide walks you through everything from quoting, design analysis, and shipment to best practices that ensure your model is optimized for molding.

No Minimum Order Quantities (MOQs)Procuring parts on demand, without MOQs, helps you manage market or demand volatility and provides a cost-effective source for bridge production, line-down emergencies, end-of-life production, or product customization.

The electrode is then lowered to the workpiece. Then, using a controlled electrical source, the electrode is used to destroy and disperse the metal in the area opposite of the electrode. The electrode never contacts the workpiece. A spark gap of a few thousandths of an inch is always maintained between the electrode and workpiece. This process is a slower method of removing metal from a mold; however, the EDM process can produce shapes that are not possible with conventional CNC machining.

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) has become widely used in mold making. EDM is a process in which a desired shape is obtained through the use of an electrode, which is fabricated out of graphite or copper. It is then mounted in an EDM machine and positioned over the workpiece, which is submerged in a dielectric fluid.

Aluminum moldsStandard lead times as fast as 7 daysTolerances of +/-0.003 in. plus resin tolerance (in./in.)Set-up fees apply to each run Consultative Design Services (CDS)Finishing OptionsNo minimum order quantities (MOQ)Quick-turn shipping in as fast as 1 day

Design for Manufacturing FeedbackEvery quote includes real-time pricing and design analysis. We evaluate your 3D CAD and help identify any features that may pose challenges during the molding process such as difficult to machine undercuts and insufficient draft.

The plastic injection mold consists of two primary components, the cavity half of the mold (A half) and the ejector half of the mold (B half). These mold halves are designed to work in conjunction as follows:

Another advantage of the EDM process is that it allows pre-hardened molds to be shaped and eliminates the need for additional heat-treating. At times, such as with speaker grille molds, the resulting fine EDM finish serves to be the final part finish without any polishing of the mold cavity.

Aluminum molds, on the other hand, can cost substantially less, but they typically are ill-suited for high-volume production or parts with narrow dimensional tolerances. Nevertheless, aluminum molds can economically produce tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of parts, when designed and built using computer numerical control (CNC) machines or Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) processes.

No one ever said that designing and manufacturing molded parts was easy. Our goal is to get you through it quickly and with quality parts. A good starting point is our Design for Moldability Toolkit.

Our digital factories create prototypes and low-volume parts fast, while our manufacturing network, offers advanced capabilities and volume pricing.

Get machined parts anodized and chromate plated with our quick-turn finishing option. Eligible materials include aluminum 6061/6082 and 7075.

Liquid silicone rubber molding is a thermoset process that mixes a two-component compound together, which is then heat cured in the mold with a platinum catalyst to produce a final part.