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Deciding which material to use for injection molding is one of the most important decisions in the entire production process. It protects you from having to make costly tooling adjustments down the road, once production has actually begun. Injection molds are also designed for a specific amount of shrinkage to occur and take into account the part’s application, and any post-injection molding processes that the part will undergo. Aluminum and steel are two of the most common materials used, but it can be difficult to know which one is best for your production needs. Let’s take a look at the advantages of both aluminum and steel and when it is best to use each.
Advantages of Steel Molds:
A part design can be, in some cases, too complex to be injection molded with an aluminum mold. A steel mold will be required due to the complexity of the part geometry. This is not unique to ICOMold – this is a universal limitation that all mold makers face.
Steel molds offer more options when it comes to part surface finishes. The high-density nature of steel allows more texture selections and tall, deep details in the tooling can be achieved by adding steel inserts. The number of surface finishes possible with an aluminum mold is limited, and custom finishes are not possible as they are with steel molds. The difference in available surface finishes based on mold material affects all mold makers, not just ICOMold.
Mold modifications due to part design changes are limited on aluminum molds compared to steel. For one thing, a steel mold can be modified by welding. If a part re-design requires less plastic in an area, and therefore, more steel in that area of the injection mold tooling, the steel tolling can be modified. This is not the case with aluminum. If there is a good chance that your part may be undergoing design revisions that will require mold modifications, a steel mold can better accommodate that.
Because steel is harder, there is less chance for flash on the part as there is with using a softer, aluminum mold.
Steel injection molds can withstand high injection pressure and temperature, making them resilient throughout the manufacturing process. They can handle multiple cycles, producing parts in high volume before replacement.
Injection molded material can make an impact on the life expectancy of the tool. Steel injection molds can be hardened through heat treatment and become extremely durable, thus granting them the ability to handle aggressive material such as ASA/glass-filled Nylon and Ultem. These aggressive materials require high injection pressure and temperature that only steel injection molds can achieve over aluminum molds.
While aluminum molds will hold up for smaller part runs, steel molds are more durable. Steel Injection Molds have excellent corrosion resistance, wear and tear resistance, and thermal stability. These characteristics allow the steel injection molds to achieve higher production cycles and withstand non-conformities in the product. For aluminum molds to reach the same hardness of steel, they must be anodized or plated with nickel, which increases the tooling cost, negating the benefit of aluminum generally being less expensive.
For these reasons and others, steel tooling will always play a prominent role in small part plastic injection molding. However, steel is not your only option. In many scenarios, aluminum molds may be the right choice. But before we go there, you might be used to the "old" rules of why people selected aluminum.
Advantages of Aluminum Molds:
It used to be that aluminum was machined much faster than steel, but advances in cutters and machining technology have narrowed this gap. Now, producing a steel vs. aluminum tool often requires the same amount of time.
Though the cost of raw aluminum and steel may differ, the cost of blank mold bases is similar, particularly since aluminum tool bases need to be larger than steel. Coupled with the fact that machining times may be similar, the cost gap between steel and aluminum has narrowed, too.