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Introducing ABCO Tool & Die

June 26, 2014

If you’ve found this blog, it’s because you know what you’re looking for. Allow us a minute to introduce our company. ABCO Tool & Die is a mold manufacturing company that specializes in mold building for the world of high performance optical products. Users of our molds range from goggle makers, eyeglass manufacturers and high-tech manufacturers to the defense and law enforcement industries. Over the past 30 plus years ABCO has perfected its understanding and execution of the art of building precision optical molds. ABCO optical molds deliver precision, high-clarity optics for specialty or everyday applications.

The world of optics is unknown to most engineers; ABCO offers assistance in the design and manufacturing process. Because optics is our specialty, we are typically able to assist in the development of most projects – large and small. Typically, our customers need to provide superior optical performance for their end users: commercial / industrial users, first responders and military personnel on or above the ground. Whether it’s Z87, EN166 or MIL-DTL-43511D that you’re trying to achieve, ABCO has the experience to help you. If you’ve worn $100 sunglasses, ridden a motorcycle or snapped on a set of ski goggles, there’s a strong chance you’ve used a product made with ABCO molds.

Optical mold building is a specialty unto itself. The discipline required to build for critical optical tolerances is very demanding; the success of ABCO is both in the robust designs and the specific types of equipment along with propriety processes to achieve optical finishes that are typically measured in angstroms. Our expertise lies in custom and early-stage projects – we have helped entrepreneurs and Fortune 100 companies take their ideas from the drawing board to prototype phase and on to full-scale production. ABCO molds have long life spans and are engineered to the most precise standards.

Working With ABCO Tool & Die

A typical non-optical, “black parts” mold design may be completed in just a few weeks. An optical mold design will require substantially more time in the development phase of the “optical design package.” The “optical design package” may include verification of the optical product design relative to the desired optical performance specification / standard, and modifications to make it optimal for the end user. This is a unique step that ABCO is able to offer assistance with; most mold builders are not aware of this step in the design process or choose not to participate in it. ABCO’s experience assisting with the beginning design phase results in a superior finished product.

Mold design typically involves the part split for the creation of cavity, core and parting lines. In optical mold building, ABCO goes beyond the conventional standards with the design and integration of “optical inserts” and the associated components required for each step of the manufacturing process. The optical inserts are the heart of the optical mold; these pieces must be positioned properly and take into account specific part optical surface geometry in order to achieve the desired optical performance. Years of experience have made this process of precise steps of detailed manufacturing execution systematic and reliable.

In the area of optical mold manufacturing only the finest materials and best-proven processes are used to ensure top-level quality. ABCO has some of the most advanced and unique finishing capabilities offered anywhere – in the United States or abroad. From simple plano lenses to more complex geometries that may require conformal polishing ABCO can provide solutions to most optical challenges. The complexities of optical mold building are broken down into achievable components to yield world-class optical molds ready to produce superior product.

ABCO works for some of the top companies in the world. Our customers both domestically and abroad make the trek to ABCO in order to get the best available molded optics in the world. Whether the application be commercial, first responder, or military, ABCO offers unparalleled precision and turn key capability in order to produce molded optics that are unquestionably the best available.