Mantle enhances its sinter-based tooling solution with increased automation
Mantle, San Francisco, California, USA, has announced the release of its High-Precision Shaping package, which includes 0.006” and 0.010” ball mill cutting tools and automated toolpathing software. The package is intended to enable tool rooms to automate toolmaking process by producing sharp corners and edges without requiring EDM operations, thus reduce the time required to produce mould tools by up to 75%.
“At Mantle, our goal is to help tool rooms increase the number of complex mould tools they produce while reducing the time, cost, and labour to produce them,” stated Ted Sorom, co-founder and CEO, Mantle. “By deploying our new High-Precision Shaping capabilities, our customers can produce steel tools faster than ever – without requiring programming, setup, and operator time from overworked toolmakers.”
Mantle’s TrueShape technology combines Additive Manufacturing of its tool steel pastes with traditional CNC machining to refine the shape of AM tools and deliver accuracy as well as good surface finish and properties. Mantle’s new High-Precision Shaping package enables tool rooms to produce tools with radii under 0.003″, a 70% improvement compared to the .010″ radii previously attainable, thereby eliminating more EDM operations.
“Mantle allows us to offer production-grade tooling to our customers in prototype time,” added Eric Derner, Technical Sales Applications Engineer at Nicolet Plastics, an injection moulder. “Mantle will allow us to reduce our need for offshore tooling, which introduces scheduling and supply chain risk, with comparable pricing. With Mantle’s H13 tool steel and new High-Precision Shaping capabilities, we can print tools in-house and deliver complex moulded parts to our customers weeks faster than before.”
