Initial Production Efforts

With our initial molds finished, it was time for measurements and IM trials!

For the Arrow molds, the ejector pin pattern didn't entirely line up with the arrows (see left photo below), which means we needed to rearrange the arrows on the mold so the ejector pin marks were all placed evenly. The arrows also had flash covering their thru holes.

The Star mold actually had no critical issues so we could leave as is.

The Body mold needed some thickening around the interference features to create the snap fit (with the snap ring) and the press fit (with the Star). This was relatively simple to do: just take more material off of the mold.

The Snap Ring mold also turned out fine! The only thing was we accidentally placed ejector pin holes at the center of the mold where the shut-off surface was, which meant that the ejector pins would have been pushing on nothing (oops). Joe went and added ejector pin holes on the runner.

The first assembly came together relatively well and looked pretty good (minus the color scheme). The main issues were that there was no snap fit between the body and snap ring nor a press fit between the body and star, hence the need to "thicken" the body at those interference points. The arrow spins smoothly and the decorative needle presses nicely into the star.

The mountain stand also came out well, except the peaks were not as dramatic as desired. Our solution is to go back to the CAD model and "stretch" it out.