Composite molds,
in about a week.
Print the mold near-net off your outer mold line, then CNC the contour to a tool surface without it ever leaving the building. Less wasted material, a machined finish, and a lead time measured in days.
The outer mold line, straight to a finished tool.
A traditional composite mold is a multi-week job: machine or build a plug, lay the mold up over it, then finish the surface by hand before you can pull a single part. We start from your outer mold line and print the mold directly off it, just oversized, so we conserve material. Then the spindle cuts the already-contoured face to final tolerance. One vendor, one lead time, and a true machined surface instead of an as-printed one.
Layup molds
Female molds to pull carbon fiber and fiberglass parts, machined to a clean, sealed tool face.
Plugs and patterns
Near-net plugs and master patterns printed to shape, when you would rather build up than carve down.
Bond and trim tools
Contoured fixtures that hold and locate composite parts through bonding and trimming.
Large single-piece molds
Molds measured in feet, printed as one piece instead of segmented and bonded together.
Printed in Dahltram T-100GF, a glass-filled tooling resin suited to composite mold faces, and machined to a tool surface. Other pellet grades on request.
Print near-net
The pellet extruder lays the mold down close to final shape, oversized by a few millimetres, so almost none of the material is cut away as waste.
Machine to a tool surface
The same floor holds the CNC side. The contoured face is machined to tolerance and finish, so you pull parts off a real tool surface, not a stepped print.
One vendor, one lead time
We own the print and the machining as a single job, so you get one quote and one schedule instead of managing a print shop and a machine shop against each other. That is how a composite mold lands in about a week instead of many.
Common questions
- How fast can you turn a composite mold around?
- Many composite molds are ready in about a week, because we print near-net and machine only the face that carries the tool surface, rather than cutting a mold from solid billet. The exact schedule is confirmed with your quote and depends on size and complexity.
- How big a mold can you print?
- This is large-format additive, so molds measured in feet are the norm rather than the exception. The exact build envelope is confirmed on quote for your specific part.
- What tolerance do you hold on the mold face?
- The mold is printed near-net, then CNC machined to tolerance, so the working surface is a true machined finish. The final tolerance is confirmed on quote per part, since it depends on the geometry and the composite process it feeds.
- What file should I send?
- A 3D model is ideal, STEP or STL, and for a mold the outer mold line, the finished outer surface of the part. If a drawing is all you have, send that and we will work from it.
- What material are the molds printed in?
- Composite mold faces are printed in Dahltram T-100GF, a glass-filled tooling resin, then machined. We also run ABS-CF, PETG-CF, and PLA for other large-format work.
Have a part
or a mold?
Send the geometry and we will tell you the fastest way to make it and what it costs.