Mold & Die Manufacturing

Drilling Machines for Moulds

Cooling is what decides how fast an injection mould runs and how long it lasts. Every mould plate, insert and core is criss-crossed by cooling channels that pull heat out of the plastic, and those channels have to be deep, straight and cleanly finished to work. RuidCNC builds the drilling machines for moulds that machine them — the same machines that drill ejector pin holes, core pin holes, hot runner bores and die-cast die cooling circuits in hardened mould steel.

In short, a “drilling machine for moulds” is a deep hole drilling machine: a gun drilling machine for precision small-diameter channels, and a BTA machine when the holes get larger. If your job is a mould or die that needs deep hole drilling, this is the equipment and the application to start with.

What Mould Makers Drill

Mould and die work comes down to a handful of hole types, all of which ask the machine for the same things — straightness, roundness, surface finish and a predictable cycle:

• Cooling channels — the backbone of mould thermal control. Deep, straight circuits drilled in plates and inserts, plus angled, crossed and stepped channels that follow the cavity. On a typical injection mould these are small-diameter holes that run the full length of the plate.
• Ejector pin and core pin holes — long, small-diameter holes that must stay straight and round over their full depth so the pin moves freely and wears evenly across millions of cycles.
• Hot runner, sprue bushing and nozzle holes — precision bores with tight diameter tolerance, usually finished to a smooth surface so polymer flows cleanly.
• Venting and pilot holes — small, accurately positioned holes that support the rest of the machining sequence.

The common thread is depth relative to diameter. A 3 mm cooling channel drilled 300 mm through a mould plate is a 100:1 ratio — far beyond what a twist drill can hold straight, and exactly the region where gun drilling is the proven answer.

Which Drilling Machine for Moulds Should You Choose?

The right machine depends on the hole size, the depth, the angles and the part size. For mould and die makers, RuidCNC’s range splits cleanly:

• Three Axis CNC Deep Hole Drilling Machine RD1010-10H — the standard entry point for mould shops. Drills 3–35 mm to 1,000 mm depth with CNC depth control. Ideal for vertical and horizontal cooling circuits and ejector pin holes in plates and inserts.
• 5-Axis Vertical Type Deep Hole Drilling Machine — the machine for angled and intersecting cooling channels. A tilting/rotating cradle table drills complex channel geometry directly into inserts, replacing custom angle fixtures and second setups.
• Small Deep Hole Drilling Machine — for fine work: 1.5–20 mm to 300 mm depth with ±0.005 mm repeatability. Suited to small inserts, venting holes and precision pilot holes.
• RD1010-10M Gundrilling, Milling and Tapping Compound Machine — drills, mills and taps hot runner manifolds and complex die/mould components in a single setup, with a 24-position automatic tool changer and B-axis rotary table.
• Gun Drilling on Glass Bottle Mold — a specialised two-spindle gun drilling machine for bottle mould cooling holes (2–12 mm to ~350 mm), combining gun drills with milling and tapping tools.
• Horizontal Deep Hole Drilling Machine — for large dies and heavy workpieces (up to 18 t). Drills 3–50 mm to 1,600 mm and carries the bigger plates die-cast and structural mould work tends to produce.

Not sure which configuration fits? The deep hole drilling machine buying guide walks through the selection criteria, or send your mould drawing to our engineering team and we will recommend the machine and tooling.

Drilling Hardened Mould Steel

Most mould makers want to drill after heat treatment, because machining a soft plate and then hardening it moves the holes. RuidCNC machines are built to handle that: carbide gun drills and BTA tools machine pre-hardened mould steel up to roughly 50 HRC directly, with high-pressure through-tool coolant keeping the cutting edge cool and clearing chips from the hole.

The result is a hole drilled exactly where it was programmed, in the material state the mould will actually run in — no annealing, no re-drilling, no distortion. For the mould maker this compresses the process from anneal–drill–harden back to simply drill.

Proof in Mould Production

The mould and die application pages on this site show the machines on real work:

• Glass Bottle Mold Gun Drilling — precision cooling hole machining for glass bottle moulds, demonstrating the straight, repeatable small-diameter holes mould cooling depends on.
• Drill-Mill-Tap Compound for Hot Runner Manifolds — a hot runner mould maker combines drilling, milling and tapping on one machine to cut the number of setups.

For the full capability summary of what RuidCNC configures for mould and die applications — tooling, coolant systems and machine selection — see the Mould & Die Deep Hole Drilling service.