A new machining technology has been proposed for narrow and deep rib grooves in resin molds. This technology provides machined surfaces with high fineness, thus dispensing with manual polishing processes needed in electric discharge machining. It has realized remarkable reduction in mold fabrication time and cost.

This paper presents a CAM system which has been developed for machining narrow grooves in molds. The system enables the geometric modeling of groove shapes using a two-dimensional mode with a sense of drafting and the NC processing for machining groove on three-dimensional uneven surfaces based on five-axis NC data.

The application of this CAM system to actual molds has proved that it can be practically used in the five-axis machining of narrow grooves, and that it contributes to significant man-power reduction in machining.
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