Developing a custom plastic product may seem like a daunting task however, it should not stop you from pursuing what can be accomplished with rotomolding. Whether you are converting a product from a costly metal construction or manufacturing a completely new idea, the design capabilities of rotational molding designers are far reaching. When manufacturing a rotomolded part, the first step begins with converting the design from a 3D computer aided design file to an aluminum billet, casted or fabricated mold.
This can be done in several ways the first is to input the CAD file into a CNC machine which has factored the shrinkage. The second is to create a model from which patterns can be made for casting; the method used for creating a model varies. The third and final method of producing a mold is carried out by specialist experienced sheet metal fabricators who bend and weld sheets of metal together to form the required part detail.
Each of these methods has its own advantage and disadvantages for example, CNC billet tools have provide a part with a more precise tolerance range. This is essential when various parts of assembly are rotomolded however, these tools can be costly due to setup and material costs in the CNC process. Sheet metal molds have a higher thermal conductivity which can allow a more efficient cycle time to be run and this can save on overheads in the long run.