What Is It Like To Be A plastic mold Maker?

Ok, raise your hand if you personally know a plastic mold maker, hmmm… I don’t see any hands up! Well, who knows what a mold maker does? This doesn’t look good, so I will try to give you a little insight into this unknown world.

I have one of those “invisible jobs” that is seldom recognized, but universally valued. You see, almost everyone likes using their cell phone, computer, driving their car, playing CD’s, and generally enjoying the fruit of all our hard work.

Yet, almost nobody ever thinks about where all this stuff comes from. In fact, I’ve been asked some very strange questions over the years about what I do, such as when my own mother asked me how many molds I made a day! I told her it takes anywhere from 4-12 weeks to make a typical mold and she just sort of cocked her head and replied, ‘Oh.”

Let’s just take your computer mouse for example. It is entirely made of plastic, and it took a mold maker to make the mold to make the mouse components. I am guessing that there are 10 pieces altogether in the mouse, so that means 10 different molds had to be made. Here is a little view into a typical day of an American plastic mold maker. It doesn’t really vary too much around the world either, just in the details and amount of overtime and specialization.

He, (I’ve never seen a she, though I heard about one once) starts work at either 6 or 7 a.m. I also have never known a mold maker who started later on a regular basis. He typically works a 9 or 10 hour day and often 5 hours on Saturday. Before Asia became a mold making force to be reckoned with, there was basically unlimited overtime for everyone.

He has likely been in plastic mold making for over 25 years, had two years of technical school, and worked as an apprentice for 4 years. That is a lot of training and experience, which is quite necessary because there is so much to know and master.

Here is the process in a nutshell, a small nutshell

Once plastic mould | rapid prototype | plastic mold