When it comes up to the process of selecting right steel for your plastic injections molds, there are a few thing need to be taken into account such as the plastic material you’ll be molding, injection molding cycle-time expectations,plastic part design requirement, expected production volume, injection molding mold costs and etc. These articles here are just to offer some guidance that we should consider when deciding the right steel for the construction of plastic molds.
Most commonly used mold steels are P20、718、718H、S136、S136H、NAK80、NAK55、738、738H、S55C、H13、SKD、 DF2、8407、2311 NAK80 . There are always two sides to every coin, so it’s important to know all angels to understand the long-term manufacturing cost VS. just the up-front tooling costs. If you need a steel that is wear-resistant, you are looking at a hardened tool steel of HRC48-52. H13 or 2344 will be your ideal choices due to the fact that H-13 has a good combination of shock and abrasion resistance, and good red hardness. This material can withstand rapid cooling and it resists premature heat checking. As a result, the steel will increase your tooling costs up front while reducing your maintenance costs in the long term. But here’s the other side of the coin: hardened steels are less thermally conductive, which can affect cooling time, so you may have to add cooling system such as Mold MAX or Copper on the tool design.
H13 steel are also applicable to manufacture inserts, cores, and cavities for die casting dies, die casting shot sleeves, hot forging dies,extrusion dies, and plastic mold cavities and components that require high toughness and excellentContact HS Mold to further understand how to select the mold steel for your project depends on the application. The right steel used when manufacturinginjection mold tooling vary in mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, and optical properties.
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