Mould Tool Project Management - Toolcraft Hits the Target

We recently worked with our longstanding customer James Keyser, on the design & mould tool manufacture of his latest innovation: the Cyclops shooting aid.

Shooting afficionados will know the issue of ‘ocular dominance’ where one eye is dominant over the other for sharpness of vision and focusing on objects. Ideally, everyone would shoot with both eyes open. However, where there is strong ocular dominance, or where the dominance is in the right eye and you’re left handed or vice versa, shooting with both eyes open can make it impossible to hit the target.

To get over the issue, people shut an eye, use a patch over the eye, or use blanking glasses. All of these methods cause safety issues, as shutting one eye restricts peripheral vision. Not to mention the strain caused by squeezing an eye shut after a few hours of shooting. In comes the Cyclops. Mounted with a magnet on the barrel of the gun, it blocks vision from one eye when taking aim, so eliminating the ocular dominance problem without losing peripheral vision. Great idea!

Mould Tool Management

Armed with an ingenious model constructed of bits of plastic glued together, James came to see us here at Toolcraft. Our designer – also James - did his usual magic, meeting with James Keyser to establish the product requirements, working out which polymer would be best to use and then designing the product with ease of assembly and aesthetics in mind.

 

>> image: James & James testing 1st mould tool samples.

 

Toolcraft then had models made to check the fit and function of the product on the gun, before commissioning the mould tool from our longstanding Chinese partner. Toolcraft project managed the manufacturing of the mould tool in China, including tool design & sample approval. Once the pre-production samples were approved, the mould tool was shipped over to our factory in Swindon for the parts to be moulded.

The final Cyclops Shooting Aid is easy to mount on either side of ‘Over and Under’ & ‘Side-by-Side’ shotguns, for either left or right side eye correction. This is not the first innovation we’ve helped James with – the Hayball & Autow Boot pull are other examples.

If you have a product that needs a mould tool, Toolcraft offers years of experience of helping people bring their products to market, from taking on projects sketched on the back of a beer mat, to improving the mould tool manufacturability of design agency product designs.