Surely that $10k figure for 'soft' tooling includes the iteration and engineering time required to get the mould right? I can't imagine that it'd cost $10k to produce another set of tooling if it can be done on a standard CNC machine once you have the CAD/CAM files created and tested.
There's kind of two parts to the design: design a part that is suitable for injection moulding, and then designing the tool itself - where are the inlets, dividing points etc. If it's multi-action, how do the action mechanisms work. Similarly making the tool isn't just "CNC a block of metal and then you're done", you've got to make and assemble the mechanisms and there's things like acid washing the mould surface to control what the resulting plastic surface will look like. It adds up.
Thanks for the extra insight! Assuming a fairly simple part, surely most of the expense is still in the initial design and iteration, though? Even if there's more to it than re-running the CAM job, I'd imagine producing a second set of tooling would be much cheaper than the first?
Alternately, would this be the point where you'd get the same tooling made up but this time in hardened steel? Or is it common to jump straight for the high-end tooling material?
That depends or raw material costs, tool supplier availability and a ton of other factors. One of which is the initial tool design. Also, maybe a new tool design is needed. So, the answer is: it depends.
