The conversation usually starts the same way. Quality is slipping. Lead times keep stretching. Communication has gone quiet. You've given your current supplier chances to fix it, and nothing has changed.
Now you're looking at the molds sitting in their facility and wondering: what's involved in getting them out and into production somewhere else?
The short answer is that moving molds between suppliers happens more often than you think. The longer answer is that success depends on knowing what you're moving and planning for what you might find when the molds arrive.
Supplier relationships fail for predictable reasons. Quality problems that never get resolved. Delivery commitments that become suggestions. Technical support that disappears when you need it most. Sometimes the supplier's business circumstances change - ownership transitions, facility closures, or strategic shifts that leave your program unsupported.
When these situations drag on, you're not just dealing with bad parts. You're managing production delays, customer complaints, and the costs of containment and rework. At some point, the risk of moving becomes smaller than the risk of staying.
The decision to move molds isn't made lightly. You've invested in tooling. You have production schedules to meet. You need confidence that the transition will work and that you're not trading one problem for another.
When your molds arrive at Exothermic, our tooling team inspects them within 72 hours. This isn't a courtesy inspection. It's a technical assessment that tells you exactly what you're working with.
We photograph everything. Surface condition, wear patterns, previous repairs, gate condition, parting line integrity, and any modifications made since original build. Then we take measurements. Critical dimensions, core alignment, shut-off surfaces, venting - anything that affects part quality gets documented.
Here's what we've learned after 35 years: molds leaving underperforming suppliers are rarely in the condition you expect.
Poor maintenance shows up in ways that aren't obvious until you put the mold under scrutiny. Vents packed with material residue. Gates worn beyond specification. Cooling passages corroded or blocked. Core pins damaged from rough handling. Parting lines that no longer seal properly.
Sometimes the issues are worse. We've seen molds with undocumented modifications that changed part geometry. Repairs made with incompatible materials. Damage from incorrect processing parameters run for months. Structural problems that weren't disclosed or weren't known.
The inspection report tells you three things: what condition the mold is actually in, what needs to happen before it can run production parts, and what it will cost.
The assessment leads to one of three recommendations.
Minor repairs mean the tooling is fundamentally sound. Clean the vents, refurbish the gates, polish wear areas, and you're ready for production. Timeline is typically 2-3 weeks. Cost is measured in hundreds or low thousands, not tooling budget dollars.
Refurbishment means more significant work. Welding and remachining worn sections, replacing damaged inserts, correcting alignment issues, or upgrading systems that are limiting performance. The base tool is salvageable, but it needs real engineering attention. Timeline runs 4-8 weeks depending on scope. You're making an investment, but it's a fraction of new tooling costs.
Replacement is the hard conversation. Sometimes the mold has been run into the ground. Corrosion, structural damage, or construction methods that can't support current quality requirements. We provide the cost comparison - repair versus new - so you can make the call with complete information.
We don't make money by selling you tooling you don't need. If your mold can be saved cost-effectively, we tell you. Some of our longest production relationships are running on refurbished tools that have another decade of life left.
Documentation matters. If you have original tooling drawings, material specifications, process parameters, or quality records from when the mold ran well, send them with the tooling. This information shortens our learning curve and gives us benchmarks for what good parts should look like.
A golden sample part is critical. This is a part from when quality was acceptable - ideally from early in the mold's life before problems started. It becomes our reference standard. When we run first shots, we know immediately whether we've matched or exceeded previous quality.
If your current supplier won't provide process parameters or documentation, that tells you something. We can develop parameters from scratch, but it takes longer.
Once repairs or refurbishment are complete, we run sample parts for your approval. Your tooling cost includes three unpainted samples for fit and function verification. If you need comprehensive dimensional inspection using 3D scanning and metrology, that's available as an additional service.
Most transferred molds produce acceptable parts on the first run after refurbishment. Our inspection caught the problems. Our tooling team fixed them. The process parameters we develop are based on the actual mold condition and your selected Poly-DCPD formulation.
When geometric issues do appear - damage we couldn't see until the mold ran, or undocumented changes that affect part quality - we address them before production. But the thorough inspection process catches most problems before we get to this point.
From the day your mold arrives to first production parts depends on what we find. Minor repairs put you back in production in 3-4 weeks. Significant refurbishment takes 6-10 weeks. New tooling, if that's the path forward, runs 10-14 weeks.
Those timelines include inspection, your approval of the recommended work, completion of repairs or refurbishment, and first article approval.
Moving molds out of a failing supplier relationship isn't just logistics. It's a technical transition that requires inspection, honest assessment, and often repair work you didn't plan for.
The molds might be in worse shape than you hoped. But knowing exactly what you're dealing with - and having a clear path to get back into production - beats staying with a supplier who isn't fixing the problems.
Ready to move forward? Contact us for a tooling transfer assessment, or download our tooling transfer checklist to understand what documentation and samples will accelerate your transition.