A brand new shiny mold is a beautiful thing.
That mold is paramount in a molders ability to produce parts.
Parts that meet requirements dimensionally, expectations visually, and most importantly, obligations financially.
Are you meeting or exceeding your quoted scrap rate and cycle time?
Will the mold be able to produce enough sellable parts to pay for the initial design and construction cost? Maintenance and repair costs?
There are dozens of factors that affect the life of the mold, and any potential profits derived from it.
One that seems unassuming but can be the sole contributor to dumpsters full of scrapped parts…grease.
That’s right.
Grease.
Black grease, white grease. Clear, green or red grease.
Whichever make and model your tool room likes.
Great for the mold. Not so great on the molded part.
You need enough to insure proper movement of mechanical actions until the next scheduled PM.
Filling the ejector box with enough to waterproof it for the ride over on the slow boat from China, may be overkill.
If you have to run for a shift to let the grease bleeding out around the ejector pins dissipate before you can start keeping parts, you may want to back off that grease a little bit.
Do yourself a favor. Use grease properly.
Don’t run past your scheduled PM’s.
And cough up the extra couple of bucks per tube for clear grease.
If you start packing parts two or three shots sooner, it will be worth it.
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