Scenes from Amerimold 2018 in Novi, Michigan

At its booth, Hasco America Inc. had its Z1545 gear housing and Z1547 rack unit, which the company says enable the simple, reproducible and inexpensive installation of stack molds. DLC-coated slideways minimize wear and extend maintenance intervals.

RobbJack Corp. showcased its die and mold series carbide end mills at Amerimold. The end mills bore a proprietary coating technology that the company says significantly reduces wear and helps the cutters last over 450 percent longer than comparable tools in hard-metal applications.

Ohio Carbon Blank Inc. featured its new GraphimatorEZ which reduces graphite purchasing bottlenecks that result from incorrect data entry in the ordering of graphite blanks. The three-step automation process includes extracting the CAD data (x,y,z) from molds and dies as an Excel file, importing an Excel file of CAD data into the GraphimatorEZ for instant pricing and exporting pricing data for online ordering or purchase-order completion.

Grob Systems Inc. put a spotlight on milling technology with its G350 five-axis universal machining center, which offers a compact design and plenty of rigidity. Users can perform overhead machining and machining in any angle. Three linear and two rotary axes enable five-sided machining as well as five-axis simultaneous interpolation.

Millutensil SRL built its BV26E-R spotting press for user safety and comfort. For validating and handling molds up to 980 millimeters by 750 millimeters in size, this spotting press occupies a small footprint. The press is equipped with linear scales, so the company says that mold builders can relax knowing that their molds are being accurately validated.

On day one of Amerimold, Haimer USA conducted a showfloor demonstration titled “Don’t Crash Before You Take Off.” The Haimer team showed how combining the latest in shrinking, balancing and presetting technology can save a mold shop money in the form of faster cycle times, less machine downtime, higher accuracy, longer tool life and absolute process reliability.

Greg Pozzo of Makino demonstrated the company’s new D200Z five-axis VMC on day two of Amerimold with the objective of showing moldmakers how the company’s 5XC (continuous-cutting) technique for die and mold component manufacturing can result in large cycle-time savings, improvement in surface quality and reduced cutting-tool costs.

Progressive Components’s Lorena Fisher demonstrated the benefits of monitoring mold activity by highlighting new mold and machine maintenance tracking capabilities that take mold monitoring to the next level for the mold builder, molder and original equipment manufacturer. The company also demonstrated the new capabilities of Progressive’s CVe Live system, including optimal mold-to-machine identification, asset tracking for misplaced tools and a file cabinet option for mold information on tools running anywhere.

Jerry Janczak of Alliance Specialties and Laser Sales and Rich Oles of ROI Industries shared some best practices for diagnosing and executing an effective plan for cleaning, inspection and resolution of hot runner system issues in the fastest, most efficient way possible to get a mold back into production. Included in the Amerimold demonstration were reviews of the essential components of this process, including fluidized-sand bath cleaning, the use of a borescope for internal documentation and testing and live thermal imaging to communicate complex thermal-dynamic problems within a hot runner system to ensure absolute and accurate results.

The future of making things is here, bringing with it big changes in the way things are designed, made and used. It is disrupting every industry, including mold manufacturing. During this presentation, Jamie Sciturro, an Autodesk automotive technical solutions executive, explained how mold builders could enter the future of making things by using mold-flow simulation, virtual-reality validation and laser texturing. Don Snow, president of CS Tool Engineering, shared how his shop has embraced new technology to help the team explore multiple options. The team optimizes designs and moves from design to production seamlessly while also using the latest advances in manufacturing for prototypes and production runs and capturing, analyzing and managing data in real time.

The American Mold Builders Association (AMBA) moderated the Amerimold Tech Talk, “Best Practices in Closing the Skills Gap: Local Activism Moves the Dial.” The sentiment on activism proved true during the workforce development panel. AMBA Executive Director Kym Conis moderated the panel, which included (from the left) Tim Myers of Century Die, Britteny Willis of Paragon D&E, Kylee Carbone of Westminster Tool and Tom Barr of TK Mold and Engineering. These AMBA member companies shared how they are making an impact within their communities to fill the skills gap by forming partnerships with schools and other manufacturers, conducting open houses, sitting on advisory boards and more.

Steve Johnson, president of MoldTrax, partnered with Alex Beaumont from Beaumont Technologies’s AIM Institute to provide Amerimold attendees with an array of useful mold maintenance and repair strategies to optimize mold performance, maintain efficiency, maximize part quality and minimize machine downtime on many different types of injection molds.

MoldMaking Technology’s 2018 Leadtime Leader winner is Maximum Mold Group. The shop was honored at the annual Leadtime Leader awards ceremony at Amerimold 2018, which was aired through Facebook Live. MoldMaking Technology also hosted Maximum Mold Group on The Manufacturing Alliance podcast. The standout factors that stole the win for the shop include its growth from a small mold builder into a large business group, its team and family environment, shorter lead times from the increased capacity of the business group and increased in-house design and engineering capacity. Additional aspects include investment in high-speed machining centers and manufacturing efficiency, commitment to international travel to work with customers, diversification, service, workforce development efforts and a sales team comprising all journeyman moldmakers.

Dave LaGrow leads this winning company, but he made sure to give most of the credit to his team on the night of the ceremony. Here Progressive Compenents’s Glenn and Don Starkey, who continue to sponsor the Leadtime Leader competition, pose with MoldMaking Technology’s Christina Fuges and Cyndi Kustush after presenting Maximum Mold Group with its award.

Every good shop has a good team, and Maximum Mold Group has a good team. “We are a family, and we treat each other accordingly. I take pride in that. I believe it takes more than the owner to run a business that is family-oriented,” Dave LaGrow says. Here the Maximum team shows off its Leadtime Leader swag: t-shirts and hats.

MoldMaking Technology has recognized outstanding performance and innovation in mold manufacturing through its annual Leadtime Leader Awards (LLA) Competition since 2003. This year is the award’s 15-year anniversary, so MoldMaking Technology Editorial Director Christina Fuges thought the time was right to bring together a few past and present LLA winners for a live Manufacturing Alliance podcast with Tony Demakis to have a conversation about what this award has meant to their companies. Panelists included Tim Peterson, owner and vice president Industrial Molds (2012 winner), Ray Coombs, owner and president of Westminster Tool (2014 winner), Tim Galbraith, sales manager of Cavalier Tool (2015 winner) and Dave LaGrow, owner and president of Maximum Mold Group (2018 winner). Five key areas of discussion included overall company profile, the company today versus the company in the year of its win, immediate and long-term impacts of the award, the biggest change since winning and advice for shops thinking about entering the competition.

The 80s made a comeback, and it was totally rad! What a blast as Amerimold shed its casino-themed networking event for a party that took guests back to the decade of Michael Jackson, Pac-Man, parachute pants, Miami Vice and even some foosball competition.

This time competitors were stylin’ with their 80s era shades, of course!

A fun souvenir that is now a popular tradition at Amerimold, the annual novelty t-shirt hit the mark again with its wit-infused top 10 reasons to be a moldmaker: You get to work on bigger cavities than a dentist. You can talk about non-Newtonian fluids as if you're smart. Injecting, packing and holding is not just for paramedics. Being baffled and turbulent while keeping it cool is a good thing. You can illustrate the difference between thermoset and thermoplastic at breakfast with pancakes and butter. Core shift doesn't always mean that your values are off. It’s a great way to vent constructively. No matter how ridiculous your idea is, we'll mold it! Because product designers need heroes, too. #1 You're famous! Everything you build at work makes it into the press! This year’s Top 10 were submitted by Paul Mikac of Silgan Closures, Ralph Neufarth of iMFLUX, Stephen Sawdon of Wesco Services, Danny Scher of ICOMold and Sean Diamond of Ideal Mold Design. The number one was submitted by Paul Magro of Cavalier Tool & Manufacturing.

MoldMaking Technology’s Editorial Director Christina Fuges interviewed ROI Industries Rich Oles about the use of thermal imaging to analyze thermal dynamics in hot runner systems. Senior Editor Cyndi Kustush tag-teamed with Christina to catch up with a few other key technology suppliers on camera to discuss some of the industry’s current hot topics. VMC Applications Team Leader for Makino Greg Pozzo discusses continuous five-axis machining. OEM Sales Manager of Progressive Components Lorena Fisher took a look at mold monitoring. Haimer USA President Brendt Holden covered Industry 4.0. Technical Solutions Executive for Autodesk Jamie Sciturro discussed the future of making things and how it relates to mold manufacturing. Look for these videos at MoldMaking Technology online next month.

Amerimold may have concluded, but the MoldMaking Technology editorial team and video crew gathered to do one last recap of what was an experience-filled, success of a show.

Visit the Amerimold 2018 after-show page for this video and podcast! 

And that’s a wrap! Next year, the show is back at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois, on June 12 and 13, 2019. See you there!