For mold steel selection
When it comes to injection mold making, choosing the right tool steel can make a huge difference. Making an incorrect choice can cause disasters that fly-in-the-face of many hard hours of work. For example, selecting the wrong tool steel for your injection mold can mean a cracked core or cavity, causing it to wear out long before it is expected it to. To help avoid this problem, ask yourself these questions before making your tool steel choice:
1: How many parts is the mold expected to produce?
2: What is the desired surface finish of the molded part?
3: Are there any shut offs that could wear?
4: What cycle time is expected?
5: Are there any long cores that there is no way of getting cooling into?
6: Will there be thin steel areas vulnerable to cracking?
When carrying out the mold steel selection project, according to the customer's requirements for the selection of mold steel materials, we select the appropriate mold steel grade for the customer.
The chemical properties of die steel are very important. If the alloy percentage in the steel is higher, the difficulty level of the processing steps is also higher.
For the selection of die steel, high-speed steel (HSS) can be applied in terms of maximum machining hardness. 330-400HB material; high-speed steel + tin plate can be used to process materials with a maximum hardness of 45HRC. For materials with a hardness of 65-70HRC, hardened alloys, ceramics, cermets and CBN must be used.
Pre-hardened steels are typically used for lower production tools. Many times, the mold plate is P-20 steel and the molding can be cut solid into the plates. Areas of the plate could be inserted with hard steel if needed for shut offs or wear surfaces.
Hard stainless steel tooling, such as 420 stainless steel, is used to minimize corrosion, either from cooling channels or corrosive materials such as PVC. Stainless steel will crack quicker than other hardened steels and the thermal conductivity is not as good. Stainless steel will not hold a sharp edge. Stainless steel will be used for high quality surface finish needed to produce lenses and clear parts.
H-13 and S-7 steels are tough materials. These materials hold up well to wear and constant pressures of injection and the mold closing. Special care must be taken for corrosion as water channels will rust in time.
PAS940 is used for transferring heat. The material is not very hard so plating is sometimes used to add surface hardness.
Maraging 300 is used for thin steel areas and for strength and toughness.
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