FR ABS Mold Steel

[moldingppm]

Good Afternoon,

We're working on a project that will require the use of FR ABS. Our customer is trying to keep the mold cost low (as if that's something we all haven't heard before). My tool shop is telling me that due to the chemicals being aggressive in the FR, that we need either a Stainless Steel or Nickel Plated P20 mold. It's a 2 cavity mold, running about 5k-10k pieces a year, and I'm expecting to run about 100k pieces from this mold over the span of it's life. I was thinking H13 would be suitable for this. Does anyone have any insight on whether this is really needed or not?

Thanks

[Bryan E]

Stainless steel, nickel plated, for FR-ABS is really not needed. The H-13 tool steel would be an excellent choice, and not just for protection from corrosion. H-13 provides a more
durable production tool over the long haul. And to be quite honest with you even the P-20 is suitable for today's FR-ABS grades. Looking back we have ran p-20 tooling with FR-ABS at high production quantities and never had an issue with corrosion or surface deterioration caused from FR-ABS.
I would suggest after each production run to use a two part mold protection treatment. First is a Acid neutralizer followed by the rust preventive spray.
Hope this helps.

[moldingppm]

Stainless steel, nickel plated, for FR-ABS is really not needed. The H-13 tool steel would be an excellent choice, and not just for protection from corrosion. H-13 provides a more
durable production tool over the long haul. And to be quite honest with you even the P-20 is suitable for today's FR-ABS grades. Looking back we have ran p-20 tooling with FR-ABS at high production quantities and never had an issue with corrosion or surface deterioration caused from FR-ABS.
I would suggest after each production run to use a two part mold protection treatment. First is a Acid neutralizer followed by the rust preventive spray.
Hope this helps.

That’s what I was thinking. Sounds to me like my tool shop either didn’t know or is taking advantage of me/my customer. I’ll quote it in H13 as I suspected. Thanks for the input.