Mold Texture (Mold-Tech)

Is there any alternative system to specing mold texture besides using Mold-Tech’s designation?

Also does mold maker in China use the Mold-Tech specs or exclusively their own system?

Mold-tec is charging $385 for their sample book, is this right? Or is it because they dont waste it giving them out free to small one man shop.

Mold-tec is charging everyone that much unless you can convince them that you’re going to be using them or you have a track record. My experience in China is that I’ll spec a Mold-Tech number or “equivalent.” They usually hit it. Spec a lighter texture, so if they miss it they can go deeper in the mold.

China/ Hong Kong mold spec are taken from:

Yick Sang Metal and Plastic Mould texturing Limited
No. 22, Tsun Fat Street, G/F
To Kwa Wan, Kowloon
Hong Kong

Phone: 852-2362-7557
Fax: 852-2333-9016

And no, they do not have a web site.

Timf,
Do they offer a flipbook like Mold-Tech that I can purchase?

Yes. We have one here, in Hong Kong. It was here before I arrived. You can try to fax them.

I can’t believe they don’t sell them in the US.

I don’t know anyone who has paid for that book. Moldtech makes money when you ship them your tool for texturing. I guess the Chinese equivalent has the same setup. It seams to me that moldtech keeps there technique as top secret. FYI: I believe it involves acid and base slurry that base bubbles in a consistent size allowing the acid to penetrate and etch the steel. The base restricts the etching process and walla. Genuine Imitation leather. Can someone back me up here? I am guessing.

Hi Tim, while at HK I went and got the sample book from YS. I got it a while back ago, but it just took me a long time to drop a note to say thanks.

If anybody else is interested in visiting the YS office. There is no subway station nearby so it is either taxi or bus. I took the bus from the Kowloon Ferry Terminal. I forgot the bus number, ask any bus driver there for which bus is going to “To Kwa Wan”. The office is in a building located at one end of a side stree lined with motorcyle and auto repair shops. YS office is located on the ground floor of the building. It is very easy to miss it with a very undistinguishable door. Its entrance is on the right side of the apartment building’s metal gate.

The office is somewhat of a dump with a small machine shop in the back. The sample book actually comes in two binders sold separately. I bought both sets for about US$80. I tried to talk him into giving me a better deal but “no second price”. I ask him how often does people stop by to purchase this book and he said every now and then. The week before I showed up a group of Germans stopped by, so this might become a hotspot for the international designer and engineer crowd.

And yes they actually have an website now yicksang.com

Its funny that I’ve been to HK many times yet this is the first time I actually bought something there besides paying for hotel and food. I hope the HK Tourism Board will take me off thier blacklist of unwelcomed stingy visitors now.

Yes, that’s right… They will credit you with the cost of the book with your first texturing order… Seems fair… Why give something away that I imagine is fairly expensive to produce?

Warren

How much do you think it would cost to texture a piece of plastic with a texture similar to MT-11010 on one side of a piece of PC say about 80mm X 100mm? I got a quote it would be around 95 US bucks so I just want to see if that is about right in your experience.

You are talking about texturing the mold, right? This is a photo-chemical process where you “burn” the texture into the mold, not the part…

At $100 to add texturing to a mold, that sounds really inexpensive…

w

Moldtech costs on average approximately 10% of the tool cost.

Thanks. I think I got a good deal.

As long as it is visually equivalent or close enough we can live with it. I’m not takiing a microscope to it.

You can always try using a spark roughness VDI number - you can get pretty close to Mold Tech but it won’t look quite as nice and wont wear nearly as well… It depends on your budget.

You can also EDM a texture onto a mold (electrical discharge machining). It’s like spark erosion.

lol…There are too many system in china beside MT. but they are not famous enough to be knew by another county people. YS is good, but not the only one.
MT"S technique is not a top secrect to part of chinese setup. The second half of “design-engine” 's sentence is the right answer. Mt’s film is the big secrect, It is hard to have their film we had to copy them by MT flipbook or other way.
80mm X 100mm. 100 dollar!! it is a very good price to some “setup”…
you could get chinese texturing system from chinese factory…They must have this system…
MT’s texcutring is a problem to some samll factory in china…because they usually have chinese texturing system, it is hard to find MT!!!

Just chiming in here, but we’ve never found a tool house unable to accept our YickSang / MoldTech texture specs (yes, we always provide both, we have our sample books marked with each other’s equivalents).

That said, I’ve noticed many more inland Chinese toolmakers requesting YS over the 3-4 other companies competing to become a ‘standard’.

Tip: consider spec’ing areas as ‘polished’…it is an underused and effective texture in itself.

The modelshops in the UK seem to prefer VDI Scale and/or RA scale…

VDI Scale goes from 12 (which is smooth) to 45 (which is more rough)
RA has to do with the size of the bumps that make up the texture. 18 is like Sandpaper and .4 is very smooth

Most people can do their equivalent of MT textures if you spec that though. If you’re friendly with them there’s usually there are urethane casts of the MoldTech texture sample panels floating around that they can give you for next to nothing

I am pretty much seeing “let MT do all the work developing and we will pick the cheapest supplier that copies them pretty well” thing going on here. I am not knocking anybody personally, just the business practice, and it is business.
If I were MT this would suck, if I were trying to make the most money possible it would not. You get what you pay for. I have dealt with MT and their work was exceptional, creating the textures I designed for our products with minimal turn around time.

We’ve had huge issues with suppliers not going to Mold Tech. It’s all fun and games until someone screws up your tool.

VDI specs are an issue if there are any downstream changes that need to happen. Since VDI is done on the EDM when burning the tool, if you need to modify an area later it creates a of issues with getting things lined up correctly, whereas with the process that most MT textures use, you can modify the tool and texture it when finished.