Production tooling pays off from tens of thousands of parts. Below that, you need a mould sized differently: simpler, faster to machine, designed to validate a product or deliver a few hundred to a few thousand parts without tying up a full series budget. That is exactly what rapid tooling is for.
What is rapid tooling?
A functional injection mould, built in weeks rather than months. We get there by simplifying what can be simplified: single cavity, standardised ejection, finishing limited to the surfaces that matter. The mould remains a real mould, running on a real press.
The difference with a 3D-printed prototype is fundamental: your parts come off an injection press, in the final material (PP, ABS, PC, PA, POM). You test the real product, its tolerances and its mechanical behaviour, not an approximation.
Prototype mould and bridge tooling
The prototype mould validates geometry, material and process before you invest in production tooling. If the design evolves after the first trials, the change stays affordable: that is precisely what it is made for.
Bridge tooling takes over when a market will not wait: pilot runs, commercial pre-series, on-demand production while the final mould is being built. You keep delivering while the large series gets ready.
Low volumes: from a few hundred parts
With tooling sized to your real volume, injection moulding becomes viable from a few hundred parts. Our page on small series plastic injection explains how the mould pays for itself at those quantities.
Below 200 parts, vacuum casting produces 20 to 200 units in a material close to the final one: ideal to validate a market before machining any steel at all.
Lead times in weeks, not months
Prototypes are delivered in under a week. The injection mould is built in 5 working weeks, and the first injected parts typically reach you in 7 weeks, delivery across Europe included.
Outsourcing plastic injection: how it works
You send your 3D file. We run the DfM analysis with our partner LGR Design Studio, and you get an answer within 24 hours. Mould manufacturing is coordinated with our partners, trials and injection run on our three presses of 50, 100 and 250 tonnes in Ath, Belgium. One contact from start to finish, NDAs respected.
Why Moulding Injection
An agile Belgium-based team, moulds and parts at the best prices, and co-investment of up to 50% of the mould on projects with a volume commitment. Our full offer is detailed on the plastic injection in Belgium page.
Your 3D file is ready? Request your plastic injection quote.