[d. bertwell]

We are in need of building molds for a silicone product. We have solidwork files drawn to actual size but we need to allow for 2.5% shrink for the material after it cools in the mold and shrinks back to room tempature. The mold needs to be bigger than the finish product. Is this as simple as adding 2.5% to the cutter diameter? We are using camworks and a Haas VF-3.
Thanks

[Machineit]

We are in need of building molds for a silicone product. We have solidwork files drawn to actual size but we need to allow for 2.5% shrink for the material after it cools in the mold and shrinks back to room tempature. The mold needs to be bigger than the finish product. Is this as simple as adding 2.5% to the cutter diameter? We are using camworks and a Haas VF-3.
Thanks

Don't think so, you should scale your drawing or it should have been done that way in the first.

In many Cad systems you just translate and paste 102.5%. Or Cut and Paste at 102.5%.

You might try that after saving your file.

Mike

[manike]

As Mike states, it's not as simple as adding size to your cutter diameter, at least not unless your mold is extremely simple. Even then you would have to cut it deeper by 2.5% also...

The best/correct way is to scale the CAD date and then machine it to the new size.

The software I use actually has a scale function. You'd want to scale it by 1.025 if you are using a scale factor. All depends on how your software does it. I'd be very surprised if it didn't have a scaling capability. All CAM software I have ever used does.

[extanker59]

We use CAMWorks here.
Go to Insert/Features/Scale
You can also control direction if needed.