Mould Development was the initial starting point at Protechmodel. When the company was started in 1990, the main market for business was for people who needed moulds to be made. Since then, Protech Model has stopped making moulds for clients, unless the mould will get used at protechmodel for production work.
Many moulds have been built at Protech Model and the Craftsmanship is clearly top class.
The mould development department gets used to build moulds that can not be made on the CNC, or often, to finish off moulds that have come off the CNC. The way we make our moulds has become one of our best kept secrets. We have close to 20 years of development and research at Protech Model and the skills we have learnt are what sets us above the rest.
A finished Subaru Mould. This Mould is a glass-fibre mould. The mould was made out of Glass-fibre because it gives us a better mould life and also provides better “slip” for the plastic when it gets formed. Glass-fibre moulds are more expensive to make because a negative wood mould needs to be CNC cut so that a positive Glass-fibre mould can be made off of it. Holes get drilled through the mould so that the vacuum tanks can pull the plastic onto the mould when it gets vacuum formed.
Holes are a more than perfect solution for parts that don’t need too much detail. In a part like this, the vacuum can pull the plastic into a perfect detail.
A finished Toyota Logo Mould. This Mould is a wooden mould. To make a mould like this, multiple boards get glued together and then sent to the CNC department to be cut to be cut into the Logo shape. The Mould then comes to the Mould development department where the mould gets sealed for protection of the wood. This mould has no holes drilled in it (unlike the Subaru mould above), but rather has thin lines cut into the mould where the holes would be.
Finished Part after trim and Chrome.
This allows a very sharp edge when it gets pulled in the Vacuum Forming Machine.