Thursday, August 09, 2018

We recently completed a 16 cavity mold for an oil industry customer. This multi-cavity mold will produce a Frac Plug which delivers speed, durability, and cost-efficiency in one tight package. The plug's shorter length makes it a formidable competitor and the slip design reduces the risk of breakage associated with ceramic slips.

Some general info on single cavity and multi cavity:
After a product is designed by an engineer, molds are made by a mold maker/toolmaker such as ourselves. Its usually made out of metal such as steel or aluminum, and precision machined to form the features of the desired part.

Single Cavity Mold: A mold that produces one part at a time. Great for prototyping and low volume production.

Multi Cavity Mold: A mold that produces more than one part at a time. The number of cavities in the mold determines the number of parts produced. If you need to produce thousands of parts per month, then a multi-cavity mold is likely what you need.

Capacity limitation is what generally forces you to buy a multi-cavity tool. A multiple cavity mold may help the customer meet a certain price point. If you do go with multiple cavities, know that your larger investment in molds gets rewarded with lower piece prices. Its this reward that drives customers to purchase multi-cavity molds even when capacity isn't reached. A multi-cavity mold could be 2, 20 or 64 cavities or anywhere in between. The less machine time it takes to mold your parts, the less your parts will cost. A multi-cavity mold can grow to quite an investment as cavities are added but the sooner you make the investment, the sooner you can reap its rewards.