Production Methods: Metal Injection Molding (MIM)

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At this point even laypeople, not just us industrial designers, have heard of injection molding; it’s how a lot of the plastic stuff we own is made. But few layfolk have heard of metal injection molding, and it’s only a minority of ID’ers who will get to work with the process because it’s so darn expensive.

Expensive, and cool. Metal injection molding can be used to create small, complex metal parts that would be too difficult to machine, and it affords higher tolerances than casting. It’s accurate enough to mold tiny threads, as you can see on the shaft of the arrowhead below:

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