Ceramco Tooling Department

Every ceramic product manufactured at Ceramco, Inc. begins with the creation of a “tool.”  This is a ceramic injection mold used in our unique ceramic manufacturing process.

With your initial purchase of a custom product, there will typically be a non-recurring tooling charge (similar to a non-recurring engineering charge, or NREC) and additional lead time needed to process your order.  Ceramco has in-house tooling capabilities, which helps keep costs and lead times to a minimum.  The tooling is owned by and used exclusively for the customer who purchases it. 

Ceramco, Inc. uses up to date technology in toolmaking.  With the aid of Solidworks and Surfcam CAD-CAM software, our customer’s design is turned into product with exceptional accuracy.  Information from your drawing or CAD file is interpreted and transferred to our toolroom where we design and machine the mold.  All of the moldmaking is done on accurate, CNC Toolroom equipment such as our conversational CNC Lathe and full 3-axis CNC mill. 

Low Pressure Injection Molding (LPIM) Tooling:

Made of 6061 aluminum, low pressure molding tools are excellent for prototyping and low to medium volume production.  They are a cost effective solution in most cases because of their flexibility and value.

• New revisions and design changes can be implemented with ease when using this high quality aluminum tooling.  This is useful during the first-article approval process.
  
• LPIM tools can typically produce 10,000 ceramic parts before any maintenance is needed (depending on ceramic material used), providing reliability in production.
  
• Multi-cavity tooling may be an option, whether upgrading from a unit tool to meet volume demand, or for faster and more efficient manufacturing.
  

High Pressure Injection Molding (HPIM) Tooling:

Aluminum can also be used in high pressure molding but with limited service life, so steel is used instead when tolerances and order volumes are demanding.

• High pressure tooling offers extended service life when order volumes are in the range of 10's or 100's of thousands of parts.
• Consistent, high speed, and high volume production capacity.
• Existing high pressure tools can be transferred to Ceramco and used with our HPIM technology.

 Please contact us for more information about the tooling at Ceramco: tooling@ceramcoceramics.com