How to Order an Injection Mold from China: 12 Buyer Questions

Ordering a mold is a specification problem, not a price problem

Most failed tooling projects do not fail in the machine shop. They fail before the first cut, because the buyer sent a 3D model and a target price instead of a specification. Order an injection mold from China well and the sequence looks boring: a one-page requirement sheet, a DFM report, an agreed list of trial stages, a quote broken down by assembly, and acceptance against measured data rather than photographs.

Here is the short version of what we get asked most by buyers in Russia, the CIS and the Middle East.

• What to send for a quote: STEP model, 2D drawing with tolerances and CTQs, material grade, annual volume and batch size, surface zones A/B/C. Add your press data — clamp force, tie-bar distance, daylight — because it decides the mold footprint and ejection layout.
• What drives tooling cost: size and cavitation, steel class, kinematics (sliders, lifters, unscrewing cores, hot runner), tolerance and finish class, and the amount of trial and documentation work. Two quotes only compare when the specification is identical.
• Realistic lead time: 4–6 weeks for a simple 1–2 cavity tool, 6–10 weeks for a mid-complexity tool with sliders and a hot runner, 10–16 weeks for large or kinematics-heavy tooling, plus 1–2 weeks of trials and corrections.
• Steel: P20/718H covers most commodity parts, NAK80/S136 for mirror and transparent surfaces, H13 for high melt temperature and abrasive fillers. Silicone and LSR tooling is a heat problem before it is a hardness problem.
• Cavitation: decide by payback on annual volume, not by the price of the tool.
• Acceptance gates: T0 for mechanics, T1 on production material with a full dimensional report, T2 for process window and repeatability, then a pre-production run. Tie the final payment to the run.
• Categories and size: food, medical, automotive and sports tooling; parts up to 2 m × 1.6 m (2000 × 1600 mm).
• After delivery: a mold passport, a shot-count based maintenance schedule, spare wear parts, and dry storage — internal condensation rusts a tool faster than production wears it.

The five expensive mistakes: buying from a photo without DFM; leaving surface zones undefined; not checking your press before ordering; not defining who pays for corrections; and accepting T1 samples without a data package.

Send a STEP file and a 2D drawing with material and annual volume — we return DFM comments and a tooling quote, answered within 12 hours.