Expert: ShiniGami - 1/9/2008

Question
QUESTION: are the metal molds used in mass producing toys, made from waxes or resin casts? it seems to me that a wax master would need to be the foundation for the metal mold making process...would you be willing to elaborate of the process from going to sculpt to the the metal negative for an injection molded action figure?  thanks for your time

ANSWER: Waxes, Polyurethanes (Resins), Sculpey, Brass and Plastic Extrusions or about anything else.
No 2 items are usually the same. Some have to be re-cast, some reduced or enlarged in size, engineering added, plastic flow, design of gates and vents, pulls, undercuts, hardening times, injection pressures up to many tons, Vinyl, PVC, ABS, hybrids, specialty plastics, durometers, shear strengths, mold life, mold cavities, mold release, mold cycle times, air cooled or water cooled, etc etc. Also depends on item design, budget (Virgin plastic or recycled), articulation, quantity to be run requiring multiple final tool sets, etc.

My job is many times to give input or suggestions on any or all of the above. It's alot of hands on, doing different steps on different projects until you can basic do all of the above. Then comes down to safety and drop tests, correcting any tooling problems or issues, re-testing, determining cycle times for different parts in same tooling sets, etc.

Took me about 10 years to go from doing small parts of projects, to larger , more involved items, to detailed products in ABS with high tolerances and precision detail. Then maybe 5 or more years to do die cast and metal components, Battery Ops, etc.

I bought alot of equipment myself to learn faster. Spincasters, Vulcanisers, pressure and vacuum chambers, rotomolding, RTVs, etc. I think between my first set-up of chambers, casters and molding equipment, I spent about $40,000US, and then about half that much on materials. I bought Urethanes and RTVs in 55 gallon drums, and just spent years getting it down. It's also why there's very few overall project managers/designers with hands on experience.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: action figure wise. im curious...if the various parts are to be injection molded, specifically, once the factor say, gets the torso of the action figure in resin..do they have to make a wax master to create the metal mold or can they create the master metal negative directly off of the resin casting...and if so..how does the steel nagative release from the resing master without locking on?

Answer
They'd tool off the resin, but could also make a copy, and add engineering. The steel neg can be made from a variety of different processes. Can be a pantograph, a plateing,, a litho or other methods. Whatever works best for that project. Or pieces can be tooled, not turn out good, and then be re-tooled for a different material. Again, every figure is different, and there's hundreds of variables. Tollerances needed, undercuts, gate and vent positions, etc.

Every figure is different. Also, depends on companies desires for price point, safety, number of points of articulation, pricing of materials (PVC might have gone up 20% over last 6 months, and ABS might be 30%.)

I've changed materials, tooling, engineering, etc, more than once on lots of figures.