There's a middle ground to creating a dedicated mold in MUD tooling[0]. Your mold is a set of inserts that go into a standardized base mold. You get less longev

There's a middle ground to creating a dedicated mold in MUD tooling[0]. Your mold is a set of inserts that go into a standardized base mold. You get less longevity out of a MUD mold, but it's typically much cheaper up front and you can reuse a substantial amount of the cavity and insert design when you go to a dedicated mold. I did work for a US contract moldmaker. The amount of knowledge about the performance of thermoplastics and metals was really impressive. They used some interesting off-the-shelf software to do simulations of mold performance, too. It was a fun gig. I appreciated the tactile, tangible technology that went into their operation. [0] https://www.dme.net/mud/ https://www.dme.net/mud/