Moldmaking Report: CPIA Moldmakers Check Out Upstream Operations

A tour of Bohler Uddeholm’s tool steel warehouse and the Bohler Uddeholm Thermo-Tech heat treatment operation in Mississauga were the focus of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association’s Mould Makers Council meeting in September. Attendees were shown the sawing, machining and grinding equipment in the warehouse, which has a number of centralized functions to enhance efficiency. Chips are swept into an underground conveyor system for recycling, while coolant mist is conveyed to centralized equipment where it can be cleaned, filtered and reused.

Next door, the Thermo-Tech facility houses vacuum hardening furnaces and a full metallurgical lab. Thermo-Tech also performs vacuum tempering, atmospheric tempering, cryogenics and surface-enhancement treatments. A new data acquisition system allows the company easy access to customer-specific records.

During dinner, the moldmakers learned the causes of common mold problems, such as wear, corrosion and cracking.