Multiple Processes Offer Flexibility
Often, good products that serve a limited market can benefit from a low-volume production approach. Because of our extensive prototype and tool-design background, we are uniquely suited to offer many options:
Machined parts – CNC Milling and Turning
Aluminum casting
Cast urethane
Thermoforming
Injection molding
Laser cutting
Question, Analyze and Plan...First. We can perform an analysis to predict the production levels that would best suit any of a variety of processes by analyzing the costs of tooling, production and setup costs, labor cost and material costs.
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 Whether machining parts, aluminum casting, thermoforming or injection molding, David Wolfe Design is your source for low volume production. |
| Tool Shelf | Structural Brace |
Urethane Casting
For customer requiring small quantities of a prototype, a variety of approaches may be employed often in a single prototype part. One approach is to cast the part using a mold constructed from wood or urethane tooling board. A gravity cast of a hand-mixed 2-part urethane can be produced that will give a dimensionally accurate prototype. Because of the variety of urethane materials available, desired physical properties can be realized that will mimic the production part. Inserts can be molded into the part or added afterward. If higher volumes are required the same mold can be fitted to our Dopag Meter-mix machine. The use of static mixers allows for more rapid production of parts as compared to hand mixing.
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Prodigy™ HDLV™ Pump & Gun Controller to right and Urethane Casting examples to left. |
| Urethane Castings | Prodigy™ |
Thermoforming
Thermoforming is the process of forcing a heated sheet of plastic to conform to a mold -- usually using vacuum to force the plastic into shape of the mold. We can form parts as small as a doorbell button to as large as the roof of a car. Plastic can be as thin as a disposable drinking cup or as thick as the canopy enclosing the cockpit of a fighter jet. The advantage of the process is a reasonably priced mold that will yield a limited number of parts. The durability of the mold is determined by the material being molded, the type and thickness of the plastic required, the complexity of the geometry, and the quantity of parts required. We construct molds from wood, urethane tooling board, epoxy-fiberglass, cast aluminum, or machined aluminum.
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Quality thermoformed products from David Wolfe Design. |
| CNC Thermoform Mold |
Injection Molding
David Wolfe Design offers plastic injection molding services for your prototyping, low volume, and contract manufacturing needs. Many times our customers have difficulty finding a molder to run their complicated injection molded parts when their annual requirement is very low. That's where David Wolfe Design comes in. We are not a high-volume commodity molder but rather a specialized source for low volume molding production. First we evaluate our customers' part designs for optimum molding conditions and mold design possibilities. We then construct the injection molds with the necessary components and actions to create the parts keeping in mind that operator interaction with loose pieces and hand loaded inserts may be the key to minimal mold and part cost. Our new 185 Ton Arburg molding machine can handle most of our customers injection molding needs and when that is not enough, we work with our network of molding resources. We mold a variety of materials ranging from the simplest polypropylene compounds to the most troublesome engineering grade resins such as electrically conductive nylon or GE Ultem.
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Collection of Injection Mold Parts. to left and Arborg Injection Molding machine to right. |
| Variety of molded parts from DWD. | Arburg Molding Machine |
David Wolfe Design routinely machines prototypes to customer specifications using a variety of materials ranging from materials as basic as Pine or 5 lb. rigid foam to materials as difficult as Titanium or IN-100 Nickel Alloy. We also have considerable experience with machining plastics such as UHMW, PVC, Polypropylene and urethane. We work closely with material and tooling suppliers to arrive at optimum cutting conditions so that quality, efficiency, and accuracy is maintained. We also employ a network of subcontract sources to provide other services, such as heat-treating, plating, etching, vapor polishing, hot-stamping, and screen-printing, laser cutting, flame-cutting, welding, and polishing services.
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A vertical CNC machining center at work on the left, and machined parts on the right. |
| CNC Machine in Action | Air Poppet Family Components |
