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Bridge Tooling Service: From Prototyping to Production

Norck: Rapid Bridge Tooling for Precision Injection Molding

Norck delivers fast, high-quality bridge tooling for demanding industries including aerospace, defense, robotics, industrial, automotive, electronics, energy, hardware, and consumer products. Our expert engineers and cutting-edge facilities ensure exceptional accuracy, rapid turnaround, and competitive pricing for your injection molding needs.

Capabilities:

  • Bridge Tooling Design & Manufacturing: Optimized for rapid iteration and pre-production runs.
  • Aluminum and Soft Tooling: Cost-effective, fast solutions for prototyping and low to medium volume production.
  • Mold Validation & Testing: Ensure optimal mold performance before committing to production tooling.
  • Design for Manufacturing (DFM) Assistance: Optimize designs for injection molding efficiency.
  • Production Tooling Support: Seamless transition to high-volume manufacturing.

Why Norck?

  • Quality Commitment: Rigorous quality control for reliable injection molded parts.
  • Engineering Expertise: Deep understanding of plastics, tooling design, and production processes.
  • Cost-Effective Solutions: Competitive pricing for both prototyping and production volumes.

What is Bridge Tooling?

There are mainly three toolings used for injection molding projects: prototype, bridge, and production tooling.

Bridge tooling is used for the phase between prototyping and production tooling to produce a medium-volume of a part or product. Its purpose is to provide components to start the assembly processes while waiting for the production tooling for mass production or to test the market.

The mold is made from mild-grade steel and has missing features like a cooling system, which reduces its cost compared to production tooling.

What are the advantages & disadvantages of bridge tooling?

Bridge tooling offers many advantages:

• Cost effective: Cost is reduced due to the mold material (mild steel)

• Accurate parts: Bridge molds are more accurate than prototype tooling, which will reduce deficiencies.

• Fast to manufacture tooling: Since the mold is missing features and the used material is mild, bridge tooling can be manufactured faster than production tooling, which helps start the assembly process while waiting for the manufacturing of the production tooling.

• Well adapted for medium-volume production.

But there are some disadvantages as well:

   - Mild material: will wear if the molded plastic is rigid or has fiberglass in it.

How is it fabricated?

Bridge injection molding mold is made through four steps:

1. Plastification: The plastic granules are transferred from the hopper to the mold using a rotating screw and molted using heaters.

2. Injection: The plastic granules are transferred from the hopper to the mold using a rotating screw and molted using heaters.close until the plastic solidifies.

3. Cooling: After injection, the molted plastic will be cooled down to become solid using a cooling circuit. The screw will hold its position to hold the pressure inside the mold.

4. Ejection: After the molted plastic solidifies using a cooling circuit, the Die is opened, and the part is ejected via ejector pins. The screws will retreat to prepare for the next injection.

Obtaining a fully functional part might require extra processing for features that can’t be made with the Bridge tooling process, such as taping. The designed part should follow Bridge tooling design guidelines.

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CAPABILITIES

Norck: Your Data-Driven Partner for On-Demand Manufacturing Excellence

Norck is a technology-powered manufacturing leader specializing in CNC machining, 3D printing, sheet metal fabrication, and injection molding. Our intelligent, data-driven approach ensures exceptional quality, optimized costs, and seamless supply chain management for companies worldwide.

Key Services:

Why Choose Norck?

  • AI-Powered Manufacturing: Data and AI optimize our processes for superior quality, minimized costs, and supply chain visibility
  • Vast Production Capacity: Our extensive partner network in Europe and the US guarantees both low and high-volume production.
  • End-to-End Expertise: Our team of engineers, data scientists, and product developers ensure design for manufacturability and unparalleled service
  • Single-Source Solution: Norck streamlines your supply chain, reduces overhead, enhances purchasing power, and delivers just-in-time results.

Experience the Norck difference. Get a quote fast for your manufacturing needs today!

OUR SERVICES

WHAT NORCK DOES BEST

WHY NORCK?

Get Access to Huge Production Capacity

Besides Norck's own production capacity, Norck has access to hundreds of top quality CNC machining, sheet metal, 3D printing, injection molding, and urethane casting providers across the United States, Germany, and Europe.

Creating Supply Chain Resilience

Working with Norck effectively reduces your risks against supply chain shocks, unforeseen delays, price fluctuations, and quality issues, thus increasing your company’s resilience in its outsourcing and supply chain.

Innovation at Work

Besides being an artificial intelligence augmented digital manufacturing company, we also develop extremely innovative manufacturing tools, fixtures and of course software applications such as RapidCAD, a highly intuitive and innovative web based CAD application.

Artificial Intelligence Augmented

Norck gathers and uses thousands of data points to augment its engineers with a state of the art artificial intelligent system for better design and manufacturability.

Green Driven

Norck encourages its partners to be carbon-neutral, and gives carbon neutral compliant suppliers priority over non-compliants.

LEADING ON DEMAND DIGITAL MANUFACTURING COMPANY IN THE UNITED STATES, GERMANY, AND EUROPE.