There’s a saying around Diversified Manufacturing of California, Inc.’s facility in Vista California. “You say it, we make it!” That’s the kind of “can do” attitude Thane Rivers, Founder, President and CEO of DMOC has instilled in his highly accomplished team of designers, programmers and fabricators. They’ll not only make it, but make it right.
Take the DMOC customer who produces body parts for Kenworth big rigs. They needed a highly precise mold to cast their FRP hoods from. The DMOC team created a 3D drawing to customer specifications with all the “hard points”. Next, they mocked up the general shape of the model by bonding sheets of PBHT-20 Precision Board Plus and mounted the tooling block on their 5-axis milling machine.
After a few hours of machining, the completed part was “digitally” inspected using approximately 200 sample points. The result? A finished pattern that is within 1/10 of a millimeter at all points of the CAD drawing! Molds are then cast from this “validated” pattern, from which hundreds of Kenworth FRP hoods will be made and shipped around the world. And due to DMOC’s careful process, not to mention the high degree of dimensional stability of Precision Board Plus, these parts are sure to fit properly every time.
Did You Know?
All Precision Board Plus densities possess excellent dimensional stability. The CTE for PBHT-20, the material used on the project above, is a very low 27×10-6 F, making Precision Board Plus an excellent choice as a tooling substrate when tight tolerances are required. For CTE specifications on other Precision Board Plus densities, see our product data sheets.
In addition, Precision Board Plus does not out-gas during the curing process, so it’s ideal for layup tools and mold patterns (see autoclave ramping procedures). To learn more about the capabilities of Precision Board Plus, go to www.precisionboard.com.
Need help with a quote? Click here or call us at 800-845-0745