Rapid
tooling on the PROTIQ Marketplace

Rapid tooling is a manufacturing process that uses special techniques and technologies to quickly and efficiently produce high-quality production tools. This can include the use of 3D printing, CNC machining and other advanced techniques to quickly produce moulds, dies and other types of tools.
One of the main benefits of rapid tooling is that manufacturers can quickly and easily produce custom tools and parts that can be used for a variety of applications such as prototyping, testing and low-volume production. This reduces the lead times and costs associated with traditional tooling processes and allows companies to bring new products to market faster.
In addition to speed and versatility, rapid tooling is also very accurate, producing tools with high precision and repeatability. This makes it ideal for producing complex and intricate parts and ensures that the end products meet the highest quality standards.
Producing tools and tool inserts directly from 3D data is no problem with the PROTIQ Marketplace rapid tooling service. Here you can have items such as tool inserts for injection molding or vacuum casting manufactured quickly and economically in real materials.
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What
is rapid tooling?
Rapid tooling is a generic term for any manufacturing process where tool inserts or complete tools are produced directly from 3D CAD data. Over the last few years, additive technologies in particular – such as selective laser sintering with plastics and selective laser melting with metal – have proven effective for prototyping and small-series tool making.
One of the main advantages of rapid tooling is its flexibility. It allows manufacturers to quickly and easily produce custom tools and parts that are tailored to their specific needs and requirements. This can be especially useful for prototyping, where manufacturers need to test and iterate on their designs before committing to full-scale production.
Advantages of rapid tooling
- Rapid manufacturing of complex geometries
- Cost-effective (small) series production
- Tool prototype testing in series materials
- Easy adjustments in the 3D data and fast remanufacturing

Our rapid tooling service
Want to take advantage of rapid tooling? We will produce your tools and tool inserts on the PROTIQ Marketplace within just a few days of receiving your order. Choose from six different 3D printing processes and over 30 materials to design your custom component.
Why
use 3D printing for rapid tooling?
Identify potential for improvement and optimize processes
Tool making with ablative or forming technologies, such as milling or CNC turning, is subject to process-related limitations. Cooling channels created in injection-molded tools using machining technologies, for example, can be added to the material only in straight lines. The more complex a component’s geometry, the more difficult it is to maintain precise cooling along the contour of the tool. This can make the conventional production of sophisticated components extremely laborious and cost-intensive. Compared to traditional processes, additive manufacturing delivers a significant time saving and offers cost-effectiveness regardless of shape. Because each 3D-printed component is manufactured directly from CAD data, no additional tools are needed. This saves on labor and reduces the risk of errors in production.

Better component quality and less waste thanks to conformal cooling
Uneven cooling can reduce the quality of parts. “Hot spots” are a common cause of unwanted deformations, which needlessly increase reject rates. The layered structure in additive manufacturing lets engineers adapt cooling channels perfectly to the shape of the tool and integrate them into the component surface at uniform intervals. This allows an extremely homogeneous surface temperature to be generated across the whole tool, significantly improving heat dissipation.
Advantages of conformal cooling
- Higher-quality injection-molded parts
- Less waste
- Up to 40% shorter cycle times
Improved
functionality thanks to an optimized basic shape
Additive manufacturing makes it possible to produce geometries that were previously unobtainable with traditional technologies. 3D printing also allows internal features to be integrated into a component without difficulty. On the PROTIQ Marketplace, you can choose to have the topology of your tool analyzed and optimized for the best possible basic shape under mechanical stress. Schedule a consultation now!