General Pattern has long lead the industry in the use of Laser Sintering (LS) as a means of getting to injection mold tooling in less than 12 days. Having produced over 2000 tools in the last 12 months, we wanted to improve the process and expand our market at the same time. Since the LS process is best suited for parts less than 6” x 6”, it was a natural process for several medical applications. However, many of the applications required closer tolerances than the process would allow.

Since the +/-.005 standard LS tolerance was to wide, General Pattern began a search for a means of secondary machining the LS tools. In our first attempt, we used conventional EDM, but that proved too costly and violated the 12 day delivery window. After further research, we applied an emerging technology called Laser Milling. Through the use of a proprietary algorithm, we were able to Laser Mill the hybrid stainless/bronze LS alloy tool inserts that had been formed with .2mm finish stock.

Today, General Pattern is producing precision injection tools to +/-.0002mm tolerance. Since the finish is so superior, the need to polish the tools has been eliminated; thus off-setting the secondary laser milling time. The net result -- a high precision tool in 12 days!

General Pattern is beta testing an A6 tool steel (LS material) which when combined with LM alloy will result in high precision tools, produced in 12 days, capable of millions of shots!