Specialising in compression and bladder moulding of pre-preg composite material in metal tooling, we have taken component manufacture to the next level. The processes allow an extraordinary variety of parts to be made with levels of complexity that other method would find hard to match.

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Metal tooling allows very fine and complex detail to be imparted in the tooling. For instance undercuts, collapsing cores, side actions and interchangeable inserts can all be incorporated in multi-functional tooling. Additionally, compression moulding and bladder moulding can take place in a single tool within a single moulding operation, which has the ability to reduce part count and cost.

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Metal tooling also allows for a higher degree of design freedom than you would have with autoclave, vacuum bag or pressure bag processes in composite tooling. The only limitation with metal tooling relates to larger parts where tool size and weight prevent simple manhandling operations.

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Despite some entrenched misconceptions, metal tooling is not an expensive option. Typically CAD models of parts are scaled appropriately to compensate for thermal contraction of the component and tooling. The tool component pieces are then CNC machined straight from CAD models. There are no intermediate steps. Tool components are hand polished, sealed, released and ready for manufacture. The tool process cycle is fast, resulting in production ready tooling. The secret to the manufacture of metal tooling is simply ‘lights-out’ engineering.

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Compression and bladder moulding in metal tooling allows engineers and designers the freedom to innovate. Please call for further information.