What is Tool Making?

Tool making is used to create tooling which helps produce parts or products. Tooling is created by a toolmaker who has a comprehensive understanding of the product design and creates parts or tools to be used in the manufacture of the designs. It involves high precision and machine tools to manufacture, hold, or test parts or products throughout their production phase. Moreover, due to the distinctive nature of a toolmakers work, they often have to create custom tools or modify standard tools.

Tool making process

The tool making process is an essential part of the manufacturing process, as it involves designing and engineering tools that are required for manufacturing parts or components. Tool making often requires the original design of new machines and tools to match the production of a new product design.

The toolmaker must have an extensive understanding of the assembly process, and once the machine is assembled, the toolmaker will carry out testing to ensure that the tool can be used throughout the production process. Computer-aided design (CAD) is now used by many toolmakers, as well as computer-aided manufacturing to execute their tasks.

The importance of tool making

For the manufacturing of high-quality finish parts or products, tool making is incredibly important. The accuracy and speed at which a part can be produced and the repeatability of manufacture in high volume production is dependent on the characteristics of the tooling being used. Therefore, tools must be designed and engineered to a very high standard to create the best parts or products.

Cost of tool making

The overall cost involved with tool making will vary from project to project, due to the number of variables involved, which is essential when ensuring high-quality tool making. Important factors which influence the cost of tool making include the strength and rigidity of the tool, as this is vital to ensure part or component accuracy. In addition, repeatability and quality are crucial, as the tool has to be sufficient to withstand machining forces, particularly when components are constructed within high volume production.

Die Making

Die making is a common area of tool making, as it involves producing the dies for various processes within molten casting, or when casting the components of plastic injection moulding. The toolmakers create the cast to benefit the production process, by ensuring that it can be executed repeatedly to perfection. Within high volume production and manufacturing, the toolmaker is set with the task of ensuring that the die sets produced are machined with tolerances of less than one thousand of an inch.

Toolmakers can provide valuable insight into much more than the process of design to production. They have a broad understanding of how to produce components that will be utilised to make a vision a reality. Here at Insignia Manufacturing, working closely with our designers, we can create bespoke tools for a variety of projects. For your tooling requirements, please get in touch with us today.