Crafting an effective strategy for plastic extrusion tooling services must take into consideration budget, design, product functionality, and more. It requires a team effort between manufacturers and customers.
Here, Custom Profile highlights some of the best practices for achieving high-quality plastic extrusion tooling.
Design Considerations
Design and material selection are two of the most important factors in any manufacturing process. When it comes to plastic extrusion tooling, there are a few design points to keep in mind for an effective and high-quality result.
- Maintain consistent wall thickness throughout the design for even flow, uniform cooling, and less distortion.
- Ensure that interior walls are thinner than exterior walls to aid in cooling and minimize both shrink and wrap.
- Avoid deep, hollow cavities as they can be difficult to uniformly cool.
- Keep geometry simple.
Die and Flow Channel Best Practices
- Match die geometry to the intended profile shape while compensating for extrusion swell and anticipated drawdown.
- By utilizing uniform flow channels and balanced manifolds, customers and manufacturers can expect minimal dead zones, sharp restrictions, and sudden transitions that can cause numerous defects like pressure spikes.
- Be mindful of radii on both internal and external corners to improve flow, reduce stress, and extend die life.
Plastic Extrusion Tooling Should Account for Buildability
One of the more underrated considerations of tooling services is accounting for buildability.
- Ensure the dies and heads are designed for buildability and accessibility. This could include considerations for split bodies, easy pull pins or inserts, and clear locating characteristics to reduce potential changeover damage while supporting consistent reassembly.
- Be specific with proper tooling material, hardening, and surface finishes in high-wear and corrosive zones.
- Incorporate alignment qualities such as keys, pilots, or gauge pins to preserve wall balance each time the die is in use.
Know Tolerances and Validations for Plastic Extrusion Tooling
Tolerances are one of the most important parts of the tooling process, and there needs to be a clear understanding between customers and manufacturers on how tight the tolerances on tooling projects can be.
- Align tolerances with extrusion capabilities and thermal behaviors to create easy tooling procedures.
- Customers and manufacturers should establish a joint tooling process window during trial runs to gain clarity and insight.
Partner With Custom Profile, Where Plastic Extrusion Tooling is Made Easy
Custom Profile has been a trusted and reliable profile extrusion manufacturing company for over 30 years. Extrusion services are what we do best, and we handle plastic extrusion services daily.
Our capabilities are highlighted by our in-house tooling department, where we achieve complete control of quality and shortened lead times. We use the finest materials to create our dies, which in turn creates the highest-quality solutions for our customers.
Contact us today to learn more about our plastic extrusion tooling services and trust Custom Profile for all your extrusion needs.