Most carbon fiber products need to be completed with the help of molds in the production process. The mold cost occupies a certain proportion in the product price. The molds that can be used for the production of carbon fiber products are as follows:
1. Ordinary wood mold
The wood with the designed size is cut and then processed on a CNC milling machine. The surface of the mold after initial processing is rough and cannot be used directly. It needs to be puttyed on the surface, and then polished with sandpaper until the surface is smooth, and then the product can be produced through this mold.
2. Substitute wood mold
Substitute wood is to replace wood materials, such as resin molds, which are better than ordinary wood molds, with smooth surfaces and no need for post-processing, but the cost is relatively higher. Usually some small molds or molds with relatively high size/quality requirements are mostly made of substitute wood to make the original mold. There are also some composite material parts in the testing stage, and a small number of trial parts are also made by using substitute wood molds.
3. Clay mold
Oil sludge was widely used in traditional car body design in the early days. Oil sludge is hard and delicate at room temperature, and can be finely carved. In the high temperature curing state, it can become extremely hard. The foam sludge mold is to stick the cut foam molds to each other, then apply the sludge on the surface of the foam, and perform surface smoothness treatment by hand. This kind of mold is low in cost, takes a long time, but has a short service life, and is not suitable for high precision and mass production.
4. Aluminum alloy and steel molds
As a professional manufacturer of carbon fiber tubes, we usually use metal materials such as aluminum alloy and steel as mold materials. Although the labor time is relatively long and the mold cost is high, metal molds not only have a smooth surface, but also have high precision and good durability. , suitable for high-volume product production with high performance requirements. It should be noted that the cost of molds is inversely proportional to the quantity of products, the more product orders, the lower the cost allocated to each product.