Tool and Die Maker Career

Tool and die makers use computerized machine tools as well as ones that are mechanically controlled to make metal parts, tools and instruments. If you are considering this as a career option, you will need to use blueprints, drawings, or computer-aided design files to make tools and dies. This may involve computing and verifying dimensions, shapes, sizes, and tolerances of work pieces.

Toolmakers make precision tools that are used to cut and form metal and other materials. They also create jigs that hold metal while it is being bored or drilled. Die makers create metal forms that are used to shape metal in forging and stamping operations.

Tool and Die Maker Career Snapshot

Tool and die makers typically work in manufacturing settings such as machine shops, or factories. Fabricated metals, machinery, and transportation manufacturing are frequent employers. Although the work of tool and die makers is not dangerous, you should still follow safety precautions if this is your field. Be sure to wear protective equipment like safety glasses, masks and earplugs. Most tool and die makers work full time, sometimes during unusual hours if facilities are running shifts around the clock. You may also have to work overtime hours.

Tool and Die Maker Career

Tool and Die Maker Skill Set:	Required Abilities:	Tools Used by Tool and Die Makers:	Typical Work Activities:
• Operation and Control • Critical Thinking • Operation Monitoring • Quality Control Analysis • Active Listening	• Near Vision • Visualization • Problem Sensitivity • Oral Expression • Category Flexibility	• Calipers • Drill press or radial drill • Gage block set • Power grinders • Squares	• Controlling Machines and Processes • Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Material • Getting Information • Making Decisions • Processing Information

The Advantages of Involving the Tool Maker When Designing Parts

Part design can be a difficult process, particularly when you’re in charge of the business. And while it may be tempting to go for cheap substitutes and stick with formulaic designs, at the end of the day it’s your business that suffers. We’re going to take a look at the advantages of involving the tool maker when designing parts. By using custom made items and employing the tool maker’s creativity you can significantly broaden your horizons and increase the value of your business.

The potential to increase productivity through custom design

Parts and systems that are not custom designed are cheaper, but they won’t produce the best results for your business and the systems that go into it purely because that’s not what they were designed to do. Instead, by employing the use of a tool maker when designing parts you have quite an opportunity to significantly increase your productivity. Whether this is figuring out clever ways to make systems that allow your team to finish their work faster and smarter or ways to integrate processes that make the whole system significantly more streamlined, the productivity gains that can be made through a tool maker employing custom thought processes when designing parts are significant and should not be discounted.

While it may be more expensive in the short term to custom design parts that are specific to your purposes, over the long term you will end up saving money, time and effort that will eventually mean high levels of profit for your business. Ultimately, it comes down to what you want for your business and what level of success it will achieve. At the end of the day, what’s the point of doing something if you’re not going to do it right?

The potential to gain a competitive advantage over the competition

If you’ve figured out a stock standard part offers a cheap solution for one of the processes that are vital for your business, there’s every chance your competitor has as well and that they may have beaten you to the punch. If you really want to gain a competitive advantage over your competition you have to think outside the box and involve the tool maker when designing parts to make customised solutions for your business. The tool maker will be able to build technology, parts and machines that are ideally suited to your specific business operations.

When everybody’s using the same off-the-shelf parts it’s difficult for any one business to outperform another, but if you’ve got parts specifically designed for your processes you’ve immediately got a competitive advantage over your competitors. The more time, money and effort you invest in these custom designed parts, the more pronounced the advantages will become and ultimately the bigger the advantage over your consumers becomes. Don’t fight fire with fire if you don’t have to. Employ the tool makers when designing custom parts, and enjoy the significant advantage this grants you when it comes to producing a product or carrying out a service that considerably beats your competitors.

The ability to deliver goods and services quickly, with a faster reaction time

Another advantage that comes with involving a tool maker in designing custom parts are the significant productivity gains that lead to you ultimately delivering a faster, more efficient product or service with a significantly faster reaction time. Too often companies have stymied themselves by sticking to generic solutions for everyday problems, purely because it works out to be the cheapest alternative. When you involve a tool maker and get customised, effective parts that are unique to your business, you’ll be able to implement a variety of products, tools and systems that allow you to deliver results for the consumers much quicker than anything that can be achieved from your competitor’s offering. Having customised design elements in your process also makes it easier to think on your feet and react to changes in the market, potentially giving you the chance to make even more gains over your competitors.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. You can be part of the pack, or you can lead a business that is firing on all cylinders, with customised parts and processes that have been streamlined through the work of a tool maker. While it might take a bit of money to get set up, ultimately the gains will shine through and you’ll be able to enjoy a business that is second to no one else in the world. 

Tool Making Process

A tool maker understands the product design creates parts, tools and dyes, to be used in the manufacture. The tool maker’s advice may also influence the industrial designer – so that the idea can be made easier. The tool maker will typically work in a specialist machinist shop, and using a number of different hand tools and even often other large equipment such as lathes, milling machines, grinding machines, jig borers to make those tools and parts. Many tool makers now use computer aided design, and computer aided manufacturing and machining tools to execute their tasks. For example if you need a die to cast your new components, it is the tool maker that makes this die for you. If your die has been used for considerable time and it has become worn out, it is the tool maker who repairs it for you. Certain delicate jobs, however, require a tool maker to perform cutting, grinding, and finishing tasks by hand.

Tool making. Tool making generally means making tooling used to produce products. Common tools include metal forming rolls, lathe bits, milling cutters, and form tools. Tool making generally includes high precision, so that parts can be made perfectly many times over, or machine tools used to manufacture, hold, or test products during their production. Due to the unique nature of a tool maker’s work, it is often necessary to make custom tools or modify standard tools. Tool making is making the tools we need to produce. A simple example is the tool maker makes the tool so that you can use it to make other items, you might need a slightly different hammer for your purpose. When your hammer is broken, the tool maker will fix it. Your tool maker will also make you dies for casting.

Die making. This is a common and very important genre of tool making. Making the dies for many processes of production in molten casting,or even for casting the parts of plastic injection moulding – the tool makers job is varied and very hands on. The tool maker makes the cast so that production can be executed many times over, effortlessly and perfectly. Using the example of the hammer, the tool maker makes the cast, so that the hammer can be produced so that you can use it to do something. With large and high volume manufacturing, the tool maker is often required to make die sets that are machined with tolerances of less than one thousand of an inch.

Complete process. Tool making may and normally involves the original design of new machines and tools, to match production of a new product design. This includes original blueprints through to testing and construction of the tools that a factory will use to output a new product. When we are considering parts for large machinery and factory equipment, the tool maker must have an understanding of the assembly process. Once a machine is fully assembled, the toolmaker will test, and make sure the tool can be used as a part of the production process, to output the desired component as originally designed.

Essential. Tool makers are essential engineers understanding much more than the process of production from design, they understand how to make the things, that will be used to make that idea a reality.

TOOL AND DIE

Metal working capabilities include design and manufacturing of jigs, fixtures, dies, molds, machine tools, cutting tools, gauges, and other tools used in the manufacturing processes.

FIXTURING

A fixture is a work-holding or support device used in the manufacturing industry. Fixtures are used to securely locate (position in a specific location or orientation) and support the work during a subsequent process such as machining, sawing, grinding, straightening and inspecting. The fixture ensures that all parts produced using the fixture will maintain conformity and interchangeability. It also serves to reduce working time by allowing quick set-up, and by smoothing the transition from part to part. It frequently reduces the complexity of a process, allowing for unskilled workers to perform it and effectively transferring the skill of the tool maker to the unskilled worker. Fixtures also allow for a higher degree of operator safety by reducing the concentration and effort required to hold a piece steady.

VACUUM FORM TOOLING

Vacuum forming is a simplified version of thermoforming, whereby a sheet of plastic is heated to a forming temperature, stretched onto a single-surface mold, and forced against the mold by a vacuum (suction of air). The vacuum forming process can be used to make a wide variety of products such as product packaging, speaker casings and car dashboards. Vacuum forming is usually, though not always, restricted to forming plastic parts that are rather shallow in depth.

Suitable materials for use in vacuum forming are conventionally thermoplastics. The most common and easiest to use thermoplastic is high impact polystyrene sheeting (HIPS). This is molded around a wood, structural foam or cast or machined aluminum mold, and can form to almost any shape.

Investment casting, also known as the lost wax process is a manufacturing process in which a wax pattern is coated with a refractory ceramic material. Once the ceramic material is hardened its internal geometry takes the shape of the casting. The wax is melted out and molten metal is poured into the cavity where the wax pattern was. The metal solidifies within the ceramic mold and then the metal casting is broken out. Since the pattern is destroyed in the process, one will be needed for each casting to be made. When producing parts in any quantity, a mold from which to manufacture patterns will be desired. Parts manufactured by this process include dental fixtures, gears, cams, ratchets, jewelry, turbine blades, machinery components and other parts of complex geometry.

How to Become a Tool and Die Maker

Tool and die makers are at the top of the ladder in the metalworking trades. They are very versatile in using their hands for creating parts as well as machines to produce high precision parts. Their abilities go beyond that of the typical machinist. They are capable of designing and fabricating tools with no supervision. With these skills, tool and die makers are a tremendous asset in any manufacturing facility.

Master basic math. Understand addition, subtraction, and division. A little shop trigonometry is good for calculating bolt circles and finding the length of triangles. Some basic algebra can also be handy for applying handbook formulas.

Learn computer drafting. Suitable skills are included in vocational and technical schools' machining programs. Learn to create and interpret mechanical drawings.

Enter an apprenticeship program at a tool and die shop while in high school if possible. As an apprentice, you will do simple tasks like drilling, deburring, and sweeping in the beginning. The tasks will become more challenging as time goes on. You will learn the lathe, mill and surface grinder. Apprenticeships typically last 2 to 4 years.

Study machine tool technology at a good vocational trade school. Programs vary from school to school. Make sure you are studying at one that has various machines to learn from. A wire EDM (electrostatic discharge machining) tool would be nice. Also, make sure they have good CNC (computer numerically controlled) programming courses. Try to get hands-on experience in a shop rather than studying only in a classroom. The heart of your education will be in the types of projects you will be making in the course. A typical machine tool technology program will last two years.

Get a copy of the Machinery Handbook and refer to it often. This is an excellent reference for answering any machining problem.

Buy a set of good high quality precision tools like 1-2-3 inch micrometers, and a square set, along with a 7- or 11-drawer machinists toolbox. An electronic caliper is a plus also.

Try to stay away from generic tools because these seem to be less durable. Instead, invest in high quality tools like Starrett and Mitutoyo, top names in the trade.

If money is tight, obtain tools gradually, as you need them, over time, until you have your own set. Get the ones you need most first.

Once you land a job, focus on gaining experience. Learn from veteran tool and die makers. They can and often do share many tips they have learned over the years.

Talk with other tool and die makers on the internet in various discussion forums especially concerning CNC programming.

Read metalworking trade publications in your spare time.