On October 9, 2018, Wilson Tool International, the world's largest independent mold maker, has launched a 3D printing department. Through the newly established Wilson Tool Additive market segment, customers can use custom fixtures and tools, which may be one of the most valuable applications of desktop FDM / FFF in industrial environments.
Wilson Tool Additive offers 3D printing services on two new production lines: BEND3D for sheet metal bending and SOLV3D for other supporting components.
Customized bending machine tools printed by Wilson Tool Additive 3D
Wilson Tool International produces tools for metal bending, stamping, and tablet compression. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, and has expanded to global plants in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and China.
With its 3D printing service, Wilson Tools promises customers "customized bending tools and manufacturing support parts by the hour-not days or weeks." The company's additive manufacturing technologies are fused deposition (FDM) and "Grown plastic" 3D printing belongs to the category of reduction polymerization.
BEND3D
BEND3D is a 3D printing line from Wilson Tool Additive for the production of custom-made brake brake tools, ie the heads of curved metal plates. Through testing, the company has demonstrated that these 3D printed tools "match the quality and strength of traditional steel tools" will be used in the process.
According to the recommendations of the Wilson Tool Additive, the BEND3D tool "is best suited for low speed operation, up to about 1000 clicks, and cold rolled or smaller material on the 14th."
By using this service, customers can greatly reduce delivery time, save on the cost of machining metal parts or the cost of requiring molds.
SOLV3D
Wilson Tools ` SOLV 3D production line has broader requirements than BEND 3D, because the company says,“ Only if you can think of it, we can do it. ”
For this production line, customers are free to propose completely unique fixtures and designs according to their requirements. It seems that both FDM and vat polymerisation are used to fulfill these orders, as the company wrote, "We use two different 3D processes to make complex parts that are flexible and can be modified quickly. By resisting pressure, life and quality, Rigorous testing has determined that these two processes provide customers with a full range of ideal product possibilities. "