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Creating Basic Mold Tooling with a Shutoff
In this exercise we’re going to create basic
mold tooling for the part illustrated to the right.
This part has a simple planar parting line and
one circular shutoff area at the bottom of the
part. The part by itself is available for download
as [Link] with this lesson.
Let’s quickly make the part.
Start with a new file in View 1. (The Top
View.)
Click on the CREATE ROUNDED RECTANGLE BY
WIDTH HEIGHT Icon.
Type 0.375 for the corner radius. Select the MidCtr anchoring
Option. Type 2 for the Width and 2 for the Height.
Using the Keyin Option, hit the ENTER Key three times to
place the rectangle centered on the origin.
Next, click on the CREATE CIRCLE BY DIAMETER
Icon.
Type 1.25 for the diameter.
Using the Keyin Option, hit the ENTER Key twice and
type –1.5 for the ZC value. Hit the ENTER Key one more
time.
Now, switch to the Isometric View. (View 7.)
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Your screen should look like this:
Click on the EXTRUDE Icon.
A Dialog Box appears.
Type 0.75 for the Length.
Type 5 for the Draft Angle and select the Inward
Option. Hit the ENTER Key.
Click on ALL DSP and then ALL. Then, deselect the
circle and hit the ENTER Key.
Click on the downward-facing vector.
Click on the Backup Button. The Dialog Box reappears.
Select the Outward Option and hit the ENTER key.
Click on the circle and hit the ENTER Key.
Click on the upward-facing vector.
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You will now have two solids on the screen.
Click on the BOOLEAN UNION Icon.
Select the two solids and hit the ENTER Key.
You now have one solid object on the screen.
Next, click on the CONSTANT RADIUS BLEND Icon.
A Dialog Box appears. Type 0.15 for the radius and make sure
the Blend along smooth edges option is checked. Hit the
ENTER Key.
Select the bottom edge of the rectangular section of the part
and hit the ENTER Key. A blend propagates around the entire
lower edge of this section.
Click on the Backup Button. Type 0.1 for
the radius and hit the enter key. Now
select the circular edge at the intersection
of the conical section and the larger
section. Hit the ENTER Key.
Your part will now look like this: (I’ve
rotated it so you can see the blends.)
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Finally, click on the SHELL Icon.
A Dialog Box appears. Type 0.05 for the
shell thickness and hit the ENTER Key.
Select the top face of the part and the
circular, bottom face of the part and hit the
ENTER key.
Your finished part should look like this:
Creating simple mold tooling for this part is easy. To allow for shrinkage we would make
a copy of the part and use the XFORM SCALE FULL Function to cover shrinkage. If the
resin we are using has a shrinkage value of 0.0065 inches per inch, we would use an
Xform Scale Factor of 1.0065 to size the part.
In this exercise we’re going to use magic molding resin with no
shrinkage and just skip this step.
Select a new construction color.
Next, establish a construction plane on the top face of the part
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Click on the CREATE RECTANGLE BY WIDTH HEIGHT
Icon.
Use the MidCtr Anchor Option. Type 3 for the width and 3 for
the height.
Click on the TwoPos Option. Using the CtrMid Option, click
on the top, outer, rear edge of the part and then on the top,
outer, front edge of the part.
Your screen should look like
this: (Note: any rectangle larger
than the largest dimensions of
the part will do.)
Next, click on the EXTRUDE Icon.
A Dialog Box appears. Be sure to set the Draft Angle
back to 0. Then, click on the To Face Option and hit
the ENTER Key.
Select the rectangle that you just created and hit the
ENTER Key.
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Click on the downward-facing
vector.
Then, select the washer-shaped face
at the bottom of the part. (It is
hidden in this view so use the
SPACEBAR or TAB Key to index
the face selector to the face and
click on it when it highlights.)
Your screen should look like this:
(I’ve made the block
semitransparent so that you can see
the part inside.)
Now, click on the TRIM SOLID TO SOLID Icon.
A Dialog Box appears. Click on the First Body
Only Option and the All Portions Option and hit
the ENTER Key.
Now, click on the large block that you just created.
Then, select the original object.
At first glance it might not look like anything is different. To see the
difference, move the original part to a different level.
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Then, click on the TOGGLE SELECTOR and remove the original part
from the display.
If you look carefully at the block
you will see that the volume of the
part has been subtracted from the
mass of the block.
You’ll also notice that the two
portions of the block act like one
solid body. This is what we call a
disjoint solid.
Click on the SEPARATE DISJOINT BODIES Icon.
Then, click on the disjoint body and note that it is
immediately broken into two separate bodies that represent
the core and cavity of the mold.
You can now separate the mold
halves and rotate the core around to
look at both halves of the tooling.
You can easily add additional
material to both halves to flesh out
the tooling. I’ve shown the
additional material in a contrasting
color.