Mold Design & Build Support for Production-Ready Molded Components
A production mold is not a separate purchasing step from part development. The part geometry, material, molding process, shrink behavior, gating, venting, temperature control, demolding, inserts, surface requirements, cavity approach, maintenance access, and expected volume all influence how the tool should be designed.
Forest City Technologies has in-house engineering resources to design and build silicone and thermoplastic tooling, supported by a global supply base of external tool-building resources. This flexible model helps FCT align the mold strategy to the part, process, schedule, complexity, production location, and long-term manufacturing requirements.
Mold Engineering Considerations
- Parting line, shutoffs, draft, undercuts, slides, lifters, and ejection or demolding strategy
- Gate location, runner approach, material flow, venting, and knit-line considerations
- Cavity count, balance, expected volume, cycle, and scalability
- Thermal control, heating, cooling, and cure requirements
- Insert loading, overmolding, multi-material, or multi-component needs
- Flash control, trimming, post-processing, and cosmetic surfaces
- Tool steel or construction approach, wear areas, serviceability, spare components, and preventive maintenance
- Inspection strategy and dimensional correlation between tool, process, and finished part
Common Applications
- Liquid silicone rubber and optical silicone components
- High-consistency rubber and transfer-molded components
- Thermoplastic injection molded parts
- Insert-molded and overmolded assemblies
- Multi-component and multi-material molded products
- Custom seals, grommets, lenses, fastener-related parts, and specialty OEM components