Real Case: Marlan Tools — Building Molds Instead of Buying Finished Bases
A mold and die shop was spending too much on the total cost of ownership of finished mold bases. The traditional approach — purchasing pre-assembled mold bases from large suppliers — carried high upfront costs and locked them into standard configurations that didn't always match their specific tooling requirements.
Tooling Components' Solution
Tooling Components enabled them to purchase individual components — pins, sleeves, bushings, guide rails, and other mold building elements — to construct their own mold bases in-house. By sourcing components separately through Tooling Components' catalog, the shop gained the flexibility to build molds exactly to their specifications while reducing material costs significantly.
Marlan Tool specializes in manufacturing close-tolerance parts and designing custom tooling solutions. Their capabilities include custom tooling and design (plastic injection molds from simple prototypes to complex multi-action and unscrewing molds, progressive dies, fixtures, gages, and spare tooling); advanced machining utilizing high-speed 3D vertical machining centers with hard milling capabilities, high-speed 3D graphite mills, CNC lathes, and standard CNC vertical machining centers; EDM services including both wire EDM and CNC RAM EDM; and grinding and mold maintenance including close-tolerance surface grinding with specialized carbide grinding, mold modifications, reconditioning, and routine mold maintenance.
The Result
By switching to component-level purchasing through Tooling Components, the shop dramatically reduced their lead time from 16 weeks for finished mold bases to a fraction of that time by building in-house. The upfront cost savings were significant, and they now stock the components on hand to build their own molds as needed — eliminating the long lead times and premium pricing of finished mold bases.
Key takeaway: For mold and die shops with in-house machining capabilities, component-level purchasing can transform both cost structure and production flexibility.
Key Takeaways for Mold Makers
When facing deep-rib or thin-wall cavity work: select tooling with the longest effective flute length needed — no more; use variable-helix geometry to break harmonic chatter patterns; consider trochoidal toolpaths for deep-pocket finishing; invest in TiAlN or AlTiN coatings for hardened tool steels; and verify your toolholder runout — even 0.0002 inches of runout can double surface finish variation at extended reach.
Tooling Components stocks a comprehensive range of carbide end mills, specialty tooling, and mold components for complex cavity machining. Contact our technical sales team for application-specific recommendations.