Aluminium Tooling
Most production tooling that we use is aluminium. It offers high quality parts that are consistent in size, finish, shape and so on. They are easy to modify and have excellent heat transferability reducing hot and cold spots. Consort also operates some water cooled tools where improved productivity is achieved – numbers are high.
Resin Tooling
We use many resin tools as they are an excellent alternative to aluminium. They can be difficult to keep cool so production times are generally longer than with aluminium. The finish is excellent but if the parts are complicated or delicate then resin is not the best solution for production runs.
Wood Tooling
Either teak or medium density fibreboard are the preferred choices. Most prototyping is made on wooden tooling which is obviously lower cost but also quite flexible for modifications whilst developing the mouldings.
Occasionally on some larger and not too detailed parts the wooden tools have lasted beyond the production stage. Ironically if the wooden tooling can survive the first 10 to 50 formings without damage they often go on to producing many 100′s of parts. This is not the preferred option and no guarantees given.
Consort can offer full help in all of the design, development and manufacture of tooling. We can produce resin and wooden tools in house but generally go out to a select number of toolmakers for our aluminium tooling. Customers are more than welcome to supply their own tooling where we will do our best to accommodate the tooling into our system.
