Word: molds
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...from California, you simply ship the VEC unit, or cell. To make the tubs, two composite skins are draped over a foam model, and a thermochemical reaction causes them to harden into shape. (Because no metal bending is involved and the "thermoset" process uses chemistry, not immense heat, the molds cost a fraction of the conventional version.) The skins are then attached to a universal frame. The cell is closed and filled with pressurized water, which braces the skins together. Then composite materials are injected into the mold and catalyzed, causing the materials to harden. Unlike injection molding, a common...
Since the entire unit is virtually self-contained, it can be assembled and running anywhere in a matter of days. If the market in baths dries up, you can switch the mold skins to make another product within an hour. Labor? O.K., you have to add hardware or electrical wiring to the finished product. But the VEC cell requires three people and very little technical expertise--as long as there is a link to the mother node...
...That's when he and his engineering chief, Bob McCollum, devised a software program to control each step in the manufacturing process. A company offered them a lucrative contract to build storm drains, but Pyramid didn't have the $2 million needed to fashion or tool the proper steel mold to shape the pipe. That's when McCollum came up with a startlingly simple--and cheap--idea. Instead of a metal mold, why not fashion two pieces of composite in the shape of the product, inject the resin into the cell and brace the flimsy mold with pressurized water...
...took months of hair-pulling setbacks, but they figured out how to digitally control the chemicals, water pressure and the mold itself, and began fabricating larger and larger products, from pipe to custom boat hulls. The average cost to tool a mold: a mere $25,000, nearly a 99% cost reduction. "Once we had the floating mold," says McCollum, recalling their excitement, "we wanted a whole factory...
Every 35 min., each cell produces a new hull; next door it takes eight hours and at least twice as many people to finish one. Each completely recyclable plastic mold produces a dozen boats; next door it takes a mold per boat, and each year thousands of used molds have to be buried in landfills. Each VEC hull is so strong that Genmar has announced a lifetime warranty instead of the normal five years...