TOOLING & PROTOTYPING

Our in house tooling department specializes in polyester and epoxy molds. The tools are used in cold molding, resin transfer, and open molding. These processes are ideal for lower volume orders, where inexpensive tooling is desirable. The department also constructs all of our gages and fixtures. We work closely with several quality tool shops to provide compression molds. These molds are normally hardened steel with oil lines for heat, a hydraulic ejection system to remove the molded part, and chrome plating for extended life. Steel compression molds can produce 50,000 to 100,000 parts before any maintenance is needed.

Our engineering team works to continuously improve our tooling. A basic principle of production is that only high quality tools can produce high quality parts. As a direct result of this continuous research, Hadlock Plastics can provide several tooling options. Our plastic molds are high strength and we offer aluminum tools for compression as a lower cost alternative to steel.

You may be interested in steel compression molds, but want fully functional prototypes before committing to the investment. Hadlock’s tooling department can build inexpensive molds and provide prototypes matching the physical properties of SMC. If you only want parts for viewing and fit-up, we can have rapid prototypes produced for you. In either case, you will deal with one source for tooling, prototypes, and production.