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10 MoldMaking Technology —— FEBRUARY 2018 Profile Image courtesy of Eden Tool Co. What is unique about how Eden Tool Co. applies hard-milling processes to the creation of molds? Mike Eden, president: The real value of hard milling in the way that we do it is in the consistency that it provides from cav- ity to cavity, which can be measured in microns rather than in tenths. It delivers major benefits pertaining to mold valida- tion, especially with medical industry cus- tomers who make small, complex parts. For example, one of the first molds we built that used 100-percent hard milling was an eight-cavity mold. That mold was designed to make a part that is like a hollow ring, with a diameter of about 2.000 inches. A representative from Beaumont Technologies was undertaking the mold capability studies for my customer at the time that my customer first sampled the mold. Our hard-milling approach really got the attention of the Beaumont Technologies representative because there was less than 1 percent of cavity-to-cavity variation. He told me he would have been satisfied if it was less than 5 percent. It proved to us that hard milling, while not right for every job, was critical for our future success. After that, we began educating all our customers about the advantages of hard milling, and we began working with P.O. Box 491 302 Pleasant Ave. New Freedom, Pennsylvania 717-235-7009 edentool.com • Founded in 2000 and employs 10. • Based out of a new, 14,000 square-foot, state-of- the-art, custom-built facility. • Family-owned and operated, specializing in the design and the building of very tight-tolerance, small injection molds primarily for medical industry customers who manufacture catheters, insulin pumps, syringes, safety syringes and so on. • Added hard milling to its list of capabilities in 2007, which has played a vital role in the company's growth. Eden Tool Co. works with its customers to design small medical parts to accommodate the hard-milling process because it virtually eliminates secondary hand work like EDM and polishing. This mold cavity illustrates the details and sizes of mold cavities typically machined using 100-percent hard milling at Eden Tool Co. A Conversation with … Eden Tool Co. them on the front end to make their part designs friendlier for hard milling. Whenever possible, we will use hard mill- ing on 100 percent of a job with no hand work required. Our customers see the advantage of hard milling and look to us for design help for manufacturability. They follow our recom- mendations for simple geometry changes if the part design allows, so we can implement 100-percent hard milling of a cavity and core when we see fit. Most of the time, we ask for only a slight increase in radii, usually in non-critical areas, to help us use hard milling. It is not a full redesign of our customers' parts. But, there are some things we just can't get around, so we might hard-mill about 85 percent of a job and then use EDM on the rest. We will always try to hard-mill the main features of a part to ensure that they are the same from cavity to cavity with very little in dimensional differences. This ensures that we can give customers brand- new, replaceable cavity stacks two years down the road with minimal revalidation required on their end, just by utilizing our systems and processes. Why do you think your hard-milling process has been a competitive advantage for Eden Tool Co.? Eden: Offering hard-milling services and understanding the mold validation process and the capability studies have been huge advantages for us over most shops. Lots of people say that they hard-mill, but today the term "hard milling" is totally different than it used to be because it refers to a process and not just milling hardened steel like most people think. Before, I never imagined I would rather cut on a piece