Chapter 32: Using Plastic Features and Mold Tools
Note
If you want software that will do automatic parting surfaces for you, consider MoldWorks and SplitWorks from
R&B software. This software also includes highly automated mold libraries and aids to help you model and doc-
ument every aspect of mold hardware. n
FIGURE 32.28An automatically created Parting Surface for the handheld medical device
To manually create the parting surfaces for this part, I tackled the hard part first, which turns out
to be easy once you know a couple of tricks. The first thing I did was to create a sketch and use it
to lay out directions that I could pull off the non-planar sections of the parting line. Figure 32.29
shows three lines that identify the non-planar top, base of grip, and trigger areas. The sketch lines
lead in directions that those edges could be projected without running into other geometry.Then the edges of each non-planar portion of the parting line were converted into sketch entities
in a 3D sketch, and extruded as a surface along each of these three directions. From there, it was
simple to create planar surfaces between the non-planar sections. This technique may not work for
all non-planar parting lines, but it does work for this one.