Tooling system innovates with speed, reusability

For profitable sales, a pair of shoes must be reproduced 10,000 times.What if a single sole could be economically cast, a custom orthopedic, to the shape of your foot? What if everything could be cheaply custom cast? The question is posed by Dr.

Linda Clements, director of materials research and development at 2Phase Technologies, Inc.

The Mound House company's slogan: Custom manufacturing at the cost of mass production, and its patented process is a new twist on the tool-and -die industry.

Hard-tooling metal can take weeks, or even months, to deliver.

The 2Phase process makes a mold in a matter of hours.Hard-tooling metal can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, says Clements, but 2Phase can sell a small system for $60,000.

Plus, the material can be reused indefinitely.

When a manufacturer is finished with the tool mold, a solution is re-injected to re-liquefy the solid, and the material is ready to be cast into a completely new shape.

Sounds like magic, but it's simply silica: ceramic microspheres.

The secret is in the sauce.When infused with a glue and a solvent, the mixture solidifies into a mold.

To create the die, a membrane shaped to the dimensions of the desired part is pressed into place before the tool hardens.

There's no need to store the tool mold when finished.

Clements tells of a Boeing warehouse the size of a football field that's used to store tools for dies needed only occasionally.

The 2Phase process eliminates storage.

"Anything that can be mass produced, this can do it," says Clements, who with husband Dr.

John Crowley, president, formed the company in 2001.

"We have been quietly changing the 50- year old economics of the fabrication and repair of composites and plastics business," says Crowley."This concept is valid for about half of the $16 billion per year U.S.

tooling industry that produces non-metal parts, from aircraft components to hearing aides."

The initial process was invented by Ted Jacobson, 2Phase chief technical officer, who as a boy filled a balloon with sand and water.

After extracting the water with a syringe, he was left with a soft membrane wrapped around a rock hard center.

Turn the concept inside out and you have a soft membrane set into a rock hard form.

(The process is illustrated at www.2phasetech.com.) The microspheres substance hardens at 180 degrees and can be cast on site.

That's why the U.S.

Army gave 2Phase a $1.1 million contract to get the unit into field service.

Currently, when equipment is damaged in the Middle Eastern wars, it must be sent to Corpus Christi, Texas, for repairs.

Then shipped back.

"This could cut six months off repair time," says Clements.

The three-year project will determine how to apply the technology to Army Black Hawk helicopters the first year, then develop the actual systems, then get it into production.

"We hope to be part of a parts hospital," says Clements."Bring in your injured vehicles."

To date, what Clements calls "3F" investors have funded the fledgling company.

"That's friends, family and fools," she says.

"Here, angel investors looked at this high tech and found it beyond their ken.

Plus,most AI's are into electronics, not manufacturing."

The couple wanted out of the 80-hour a week California rat race, so moved to Dayton in 1992 "where we're still working 80-hour weeks," she smiles.

While living in Dayton, but with one foot still planted in the Bay Area, they started the company during the dot.com crash "when personnel would work for dry socks," says Clements.

Engineering is still based in Santa Clara.

But a one-room warehouse is being developed for manufacturing in Mound House, and tech staff employee Mike Monroe is on board.

Research is under way by staff and students at both Nevada state universities: How long will sharp edges last? How many ways can the process go wrong? For instance, the University of Michigan bought a system, and promptly solidified the entire vat of silica."How did they do that?" wonders Clements.

"We've discovered there is a point 800 degrees at which this membrane turns into goo," says Tim Crowley, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno,working under the supervision of Dr.

Shen-Yi Luo, associate professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Although a computer science major, Crowley grew up hearing his parents talk tech; he's the son of the 2Phase founders.His mother, Dr.

Clements, served for 10 years as professor of materials engineering at San Jose State.

His father, Dr.

Crowley, took his degree at Stanford University, then built a career in materials engineering.

For now, 2Phase sales are purposely limited.

The product is not yet ready to sell to the corner tool and die shop."We're looking for people who will work with us to improve the system," says Clements.

The smaller model consists of a base station under programmable logic control and a series of reformable tooling beds.

It's priced at about $60,000.

The larger model has a 4-foot by 6-foot tool bed to accommodate a tool up to two feet deep.

It costs about $140,000.

2Phase Technologies has not worked much on a marketing plan, says Clements.

"Like every small start-up," she says,"we're hoping to sell out to a big company who will worry about selling the product."