Tool Management 1) I want know what is the average life of any pattern means how many moulds produce by one pattern? 2) Is it depend on different type of moulding processes? 3) If material is LM6 or GM 4) Life in no of Impressions... a) For Aluminium- 40000nos b) For GM...70000 no c) For CI...70000 no d) For Pre hardened Steel....100000 no. This is as a guideline... 5) I think this life of pattern is for high pressure shoot squeeze lines. Further is it extendable by proper build ups at regular intervals. Am I right? 6) Be careful the Lm6 is not modified by pattern maker mostly. 7) One needs to put Tooling Management System in place for monitoring, maintenance. Both periodic n repairs, replacement. 8) White Light scanning is the most effective tool for this...event though rarely applied for this purpose. 9) Tooling handling and maintaining the most ignored and ill-treated in Foundry. Most of the times left to the discretion of illiterates. 10) Also....Tooling and gating is "by and large" non-variable in foundry. But most of the foundry men have made them variable by jumping to actions on tooling. Instead it is needed to study the variables first before thinking of actions on tools. 11) People follow the easiest path and set a " merry go round" of tool modifications. 12) Tools are often patched up with sheets to compensate for the wall variations as a short cut. 13) We are using Blue light scanner from last two years for pattern and casting inspection. We have observed wear of @ 0.2 mm after 35000 molds. 14) If a machine shop needs to make a bar of size 100.0+0.2mm say...@ 100 no a shift...They check the bars with snap gages before unloading from machine.
16) We foundry man. ..Being more intelligent than machine shop engineers. Do not feel it necessary even though a. Our tolerances are the same b. Our tools are manhandled and ill maintained c. Our machines are under designed and equally ill maintained... Even our managements are not bothered for this.... 17) I am harsh and have no regrets for that... 18) So we have invented and mastered the art of converting non variables in to variables and enjoying for years.... 19) Friends, tools are core boxes and patterns. With P20 material with hardening etc and as Avinash says maintained without patching, I feel life of pattern can be two lac molds, +/- 20â„…. However Core box (particularly Cold box) life is around one lac shots due to the heavy cleaning etc, more maint than green sand pattern maint. 20) Mechanized Iron foundry is the game of " Limits Fits and Tolerances". However least considered so in all area. Instead disproportionately weighted for guess work of metallurgical myths. ... 21) In LFC the dies can give 100000 impressions but recommended to check against pitting after 20000 impressions. Normally the +dies supplied from China have special thermally treated Silicon Layer on the working surface. This helps in easy mold release.