Custom Vinyl Dip Molding offers a low cost, flexible protection for a wide variety of applications.  Inexpensive molds and the outstanding flexibility of vinyl allow the designer almost unlimited configuration freedom.  Vinyl molding offer excellent durability, resisting weather, moisture and abrasive contact.  Materials are available in a wide variety of color, wall thickness, textures, hardness and high and low temperature materials.  While dip molding may trace it roots to the ancient art of candle making, it is fair to say that the current capabilities in the plastic dip molding industry have increased exponentially. In fact, so many dynamic improvements have been made that dip molded parts are now competing with injection molded parts on design and not just cost.

Limitations of dip molding
As with every process, there are limitations.  The dip molding process is an extremely flexible process in that one set of tooling can make parts with different wall thicknesses and lengths.  However, with the exception of internal dimensions, tolerances are often much higher than on injection molded parts.  Further, the internal molding process limits exterior design possibilities and control.

Tooling
Dip molded tooling typically consists of numerous metal molds that are affixed to channels or plates.  Typically, the more molds one can dip at a time, the lower the per piece cost will be.  This, however, is limited to the size of the machine on which the parts will be run and machine sizes vary greatly in the industry.

As a general rule, dip molded tooling is less expensive and faster to make than injection molding tooling.  This is especially true in the case of prototypes where single molds can be used to make actual products in days.