Molds & Dies: Tooling Design, Calculators & Troubleshooting

Liquid Nitrogen in Aluminum Extrusion: Benefits, Alloys, Profiles and When It Pays Off

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Aluminum Extrusion
Nov. 15, 2026, 8:06 p.m.

Every extruder knows the moment: the press has pressure to spare, the puller can run faster, but the profile starts tearing at the corners, die lines appear, or the anodizer sends back streaky lengths. The press is not limited by force, it is limited by < ....

Chill Vents in Die Casting: How They Work and How to Size Them

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Die Casting
Oct. 16, 2026, 12:01 p.m.

Air that cannot leave the cavity during the shot ends up as porosity in the casting. Flat vents at the parting line are simple, but they must be very shallow to stop the metal, so their area is small and they block quickly. A chill vent solves this with a ....

Jet Cooling in Die Casting Dies: Sizing, Water Supply and Control

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Die Casting
Oct. 16, 2026, 11:54 a.m.

Some areas of a die-casting die cannot be reached by normal cooling channels: slender core pins, thin cores between ribs, bosses deep inside the casting. These areas run hottest in the die, and they cause shrinkage porosity in the casting next to them, so ....

Small Batches: Print the Part, Print the Tool, or Cut the Tool?

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Additive Manufacturing
Oct. 9, 2026, 6:19 a.m.

For a few hundred parts there are three ways to produce them: print the parts directly, print a short-life tool and mold or form the parts in it, or cut a conventional tool. Each route has a different mix of fixed cost and cost per part, so each one wins ....

Repairing Molds and Dies with Laser Cladding and Directed Energy Deposition

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Additive Manufacturing
Oct. 9, 2026, 6:17 a.m.

A worn parting edge, a cracked die casting insert or a late engineering change does not always need a new insert. Material can be added to the existing steel and machined back to size. The method used to add it decides how much heat enters the tool, and h ....

Printing Tool Steel: Maraging, H13 and What Happens After the Build

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Additive Manufacturing
Oct. 9, 2026, 6:16 a.m.

A printed steel insert is not finished when the build ends. It comes out of the machine welded to a plate, rough, stressed and, in most cases, not yet at working hardness. The steel grade decides how easily it prints, and the steps after the build decide ....

3D Printed Mold Inserts for Short-Run Injection Molding

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Additive Manufacturing
Oct. 9, 2026, 6:15 a.m.

A steel injection mold takes weeks and an aluminum prototype mold takes one to two weeks. A printed polymer insert can be on the machine the day after the design is released. It will not last long and it will not hold tight tolerances, but it produces rea ....

Conformal Cooling in Injection Molds and Die Casting Inserts: Design Rules and Payback

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Additive Manufacturing
Oct. 9, 2026, 6:13 a.m.

Cooling takes more than half of a typical injection molding cycle, and it decides warpage, sink and dimensional stability. Drilled cooling lines are straight, so in a curved or deep cavity their distance to the surface changes from point to point. Conform ....

Additive Manufacturing for Toolmakers: Processes, Materials and Where Each Fits

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Additive Manufacturing
Oct. 9, 2026, 6:10 a.m.

Additive manufacturing builds a part by adding material layer by layer instead of cutting it from a block. For a tool shop it is not a replacement for milling, EDM and grinding. It is a fourth capability that does three things the other machines cannot: i ....

Preventive Maintenance Program for Molds and Dies

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : General
Oct. 2, 2026, 6:42 p.m.

A mold or die that fails in the press stops production, damages itself further while it fails, and has to be repaired under time pressure. Most of those failures give warning: a vent filling up, a spring losing force, a punch edge rounding, a water channe ....

How to Estimate the Cost of a Mold or Die

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : General
Oct. 2, 2026, 6:42 p.m.

A tooling quotation is a forecast of hours and purchases for a product that does not exist yet. Estimate too low and the job loses money; too high and it goes to a competitor. Buyers face the mirror image: without knowing how a price is built, they cannot ....

Surface Treatments for Tooling: Nitriding, PVD and When Each Fits

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : General
Oct. 2, 2026, 6:42 p.m.

Tool steel alone cannot always resist the wear, sticking and corrosion that molds and dies meet in service. A surface treatment adds a thin layer that is harder, slides better, or resists chemical attack. The common treatments differ greatly in hardness, ....

Trochoidal Milling and Chip Thinning in Tool Steel

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Machining
Oct. 2, 2026, 6:41 p.m.

Conventional roughing of tool steel uses a wide radial cut and a shallow depth. Only the bottom few millimetres of the cutter do the work, they do it under high load and heat, and the tool is worn out while most of its flute length is still new. Trochoida ....

Reading Tool Wear: Flank, Crater, Notch and Built-Up Edge

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Machining
Oct. 2, 2026, 6:41 p.m.

A used cutting edge is a record of what happened in the cut. The position and shape of the wear show whether the speed was too high or too low, whether the grade was too hard or too soft, and whether heat or mechanical load did the damage. Machinists who ....

Wire EDM: Number of Passes, Surface Finish and Accuracy

Mohamed Aboelfotouh
Sector : Machining
Oct. 2, 2026, 6:40 p.m.

Wire EDM cuts punches, die openings, inserts and stripper plates from hardened steel with a thin wire and no cutting force. The accuracy and surface it delivers depend mostly on one decision: how many passes are made. One rough cut is fast and adequate fo ....

Latest Articles