Travin moulding

[gavztheouch]

Good to see another injection molder on the forum.

[Robin Hewitt]

I know Travin, they made me a couple of moulds when I was starting up, is Brian still in charge?

They had the various moulders on display, the Eagle was usually running. IIRC the TP1 was set up to mould screwdriver handles onto screwdriver blades. The mould was cast in metal loaded epoxy contained by a substantial steel outer.

[m_c]

It seems to be a Kevin that handles all the communication, so I've got no idea who's in charge!
I've only emailed them once so far, and I've got to admit I was surprised by the speedy response, given that every other company I've dealt with lately has taken days to reply if they've even bothered to reply.
.
I'm currently sat with the manual studying their ejection mold plans, to try and understand exactly what each bit does. I think a more basic mould will be on the cards first though!

[PaulAtAvon]

I have a very similar machine, which I think is a TP2. The difference being that the ram is powered by a manually operated rack and pinion rather than by an air cylinder.

Needless to say bolting the thing down is essential as some leverage is required!

Again, it's an EBay purchase, but it doesn't take long before you realise that there's a lot of work in tool-making for even these simple machines.

Anyway, I thought some photos of a mould tool that I produced may be of interest. it's for a simple flat lid with 4 holes in it. The photos are of the moving half of the tool. The other half is simply flat, although that might change.

The real time-saver is the ejection mechanism. This means that the machine can probably do 2 cycles per minute.

The tool is the standard size for this type of Travin, i.e. 4 inch by 3 inch, and injection is obviously on the split line.

The tool path for the cavity was produced by Meshcam, and milled out on a Taig. It's almost 2D, but as a starter tool, it was enough to give me an idea of what was required, and a feel for how the machine operates.