What does a toolmaker manufacture?

Hi,

Many people are under the illusion that toolmakers make spanners and screw drivers etc.  This is really not the case.  It is a completely different industry.

Toolmakers make press tools.  Press tools are bespoke.  They are designed to make whatever the customer requires.  For instance, someone wants to sell metal brackets for shelving, they have no means of making this product so they turn to a pressworker.  The pressworker then contacts a toolmaker to design a tool that will press this bracket out of sheet metal.  The toolmaker will only make the tool once, however, the pressworker will make hundreds, most likely thousands of these shelving brackets and supply them to their customer who sells them to the various building trades.




This is an example of a complex press tool


Toolmakers are sometimes known as precision engineers.  Basically a toolmaker will make anything out of metal that you require, I'm not saying it will be cheap.  As I'm sure you know, one off items cost more than if you were to order a thousand. 

Toolmakers are very skilled people.  They use a variety of machinery and methods in their work.  One method that revolutionised the industry some years back was wire erosion, also known as wire cutting, EDM.  It uses a very thin copper wire with an electrical current to cut through very thick steel blocks.  It is extremely accurate.  The old method was to file a radius by hand.  These machines have eliminated that.


Toolmakers also use 3D machining to their advantage.  Millers with CNC controls can cut a shape out of steel in moments.

Press tools are a toolmakers main area of focus.  It is a very specialist industry which separates them from regular precision engineers.

I hope this has been very informative.  If you have any more detail you would like to add that you think I have missed, please feel free.