Tool Makers and die makers are often viewed and considered as one profession because they overlap so much.
Tool Makers are highly skilled craftsmen working in the manufacturing business that create different and many types of tools that are required within the manufacturing process. Any appliance or machine that we use in our daily lives uses parts that
Tool Makers have created. Tool makers make tools such as jigs, fixtures, dies, moulds, cutting tools, machine tools, gauges, and much more. Tool makers can be described as the top heading for this profession and within this heading you have specialized areas such as
Mould Makers, die makers, and tool fitters.
By definition
tool makers create tools that are used to produce products. Die makers are indeed tool makers but they focus mainly on creating and maintaining dies. Die makers are required to create tools such as punches, dies, steel rule dies, and die sets to aid in the die making process. Die makers have to be extremely accurate and precise in order to create parts correctly, their work needs to be so exact that the machines they use need to be set at measures of less than one thousandth of an inch. If the settings and measurements are out even a touch then the part will not be correct and cannot be used.
Tool makers and die makers often overlap within their field because a person in either field may be asked to carry out jobs which have been described in either profession. Die making is a sub genre of
Tool Making but it is all interconnected.