Full Circle

As an aside, Action's Potraz says many of the new coatings can be applied in-house by diemakers, which will enable them to reduce lead times to printers.

On the somewhat more sophisticated side, powder-metallurgically manufactured steels and even tungsten carbide (TC) steels are being employed by diemakers, including industry veteran Schober USA. Schober President Carl Schober says these steels have been particularly successful in segmented dies, where users can simply exchange "wear zones," rather than entire dies. TC dies have continually proven themselves in high count runs.