Mold Tutorial

Here is something quite interesting and frequent; because the object's side surface has an angle, the fillet between this surface and the bottom surface should be split by the parting line. This would create a visible and not esthetic line on the fillet surface. I measured the distance between the parting line and the fillet surface's edge and, after confirmation with the client and the moulder, decided to put the parting line on the edge of the fillet surface. This will create an undercut but the distance is so small in this case (0.013 mm) that the part should come out of the mold easily and without marring the part's finish.

I then joined the silhouette curve bits with the appropriate surfaces edges to get one closed curve around the object.

I then usually split the surfaces with the parting line curve but in this case the parting line falls on edges curves all around the object (the designer was kind enough to put draft angles were needed), so I just extracted the surfaces that were touching the parting line and joined to top surfaces together, put them on a new layer, joined the bottom surfaces together and put them an another new layer.

I deactivated the layer where I put the top surfaces, leaving on the bottom surfaces' layer. We now see the "punch" of the mold.

To create the parting surfaces, I usually start with an offset of the parting line curve and clean it up so it can be joined in a closed loop.

A loft between this new curve and the parting line curve and most of the work is done.

We needed the symmetrical part so I mirrored the punch and the parting surface.

I created a vertical plane and trimmed the parting surfaces where they overlapped.

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