A Review of Understanding Injection Mold Design by Herbert Rees

Understanding Injection Mold Design is a book in a series by Author Herbert Rees. This 115-page book has one Appendix, two tables of contents, and thirty-six technical illustrations that are almost completely errorless. This book was first released over sixteen years ago.

The Author, Herbert Rees, has more than fifty years of experience working with molders, product designers, and other designers who are a part of the injection molding field. Which makes him a bit of an expert, doesn’t it?

Rees’ goal with Understanding Injection Mold Design is to explain the important details of good mold design while avoiding the use of overwhelming specialized details and phrases that readers would not be familiar with.

It is debatable whether or not he would have achieved that goal in our current timeline, sixteen years of research and trial and error later. However, when the book was first released it was quite popular.

The one and only review of this book that I could find, is a three-star rating review from 2013 from an Amazon user who suggests that the book isn’t necessarily worth its $25 – $35 cover price. Given how old this book is now, that is probably a fair assessment, as you might be better served looking for more up-to-date works.

The user explains that they found the book to be helpful, but not comprehensive by any means, he stated that they would need to buy more books to fully understand injection molding. The review goes on to say that the book’s major shortcoming has to be the illustrations, as they are black and white, and difficult to see because of the small size.

It is suggested that you look at other books before settling on this one unless you can find a cheap copy and specifically want to add it to your collection.

Beyond the one customer review, there is also an editorial review on Amazon which explains that Understanding Injection Molding Design doesn’t provide schematics of existing molds, but rather discusses the many factors to be considered when creating a mold.

The editorial review also states that the book includes coverage on topics such as:

• Starting as a newbie in the field of mold design
• The basics of an injection molding machine
• The basic mold design rules
• Selection of materials
• Common types of mold
• Estimating costs
• Machining; and
• Heat treatment

As far as the book’s summary itself… I found it to be a little bit bland to read. If I were looking through books on this topic, Rees’ book wouldn’t draw my attention like others would. And let’s face it, that’s an important part of writing a book… catching your reader’s gaze so that it doesn’t drift to another author’s work.

The summary includes the line “But regardless of size and type of the product to be Injection Molded, whether small or large, with single or multiple cavities, or who designs or builds the mold, the basic design principles are always the same”. A little wordy, isn’t it?

So in summary, this book may have been popular at the time of its release, but nowadays it wouldn’t be my first choice when delving into the world of injection molding for the first time.

 

If you have any question regarding Injection Molding, feel free to email jason@jcadusa.com or call us 1.888.202.2052.