Abstract: A cooling system for a molding tool or molding machine includes a high-performance coolant, multiple cooling circuits with different coolants flowing along each circuit, and/or a self-contained cooling circuit. The high-performance coolant can include a metallic component in various forms, including a liquid phase metal form. Newly recognized coolant characteristics such as volumetric heat capacity (Cv) can be used to identify suitable coolants. High-performance coolants can be used to reduce molding process cycle times, to spatially equalize the cooling rate of the molding material among different sections of the mold cavity, and/or to help cool other parts of the tool or machine such as a runner or an injection sleeve.

Abstract: A method of removing material such as surface treatments, metal coatings, and other material layers from an edge region of a metal work piece where they could potentially contaminate a nearby weld. According to one embodiment, a scraper tool includes a body having a base portion and a tab portion, and several scraping elements attached to the base portion. During operation, the scraping elements scrape one or more surfaces of the edge region so that the depth to which the scraping element engage the metal work piece is generally affected by the amount of rotation of the scraper tool about a pivot axis.