• Silicone molds reproduce the tiniest of details thus the quality of the pattern is critical. With PolyJet™ technology, perfect patterns are created and ready for mold-building immediately after they are cleaned. The hours or days previously devoted to sanding, filling and priming patterns is no longer needed. Consequently, PolyJet™ technology expedites the silicone rubber molding process and reduces its cost.

• Rapid prototyping reignited the use of silicone molding. Prior to rapid prototyping, pattern creation took longer than building a rubber mold and casting parts. With rapid prototyping, silicone rubber molding is once again a competitive and attractive solution. PolyJet™ technology further reduces the time, labor and cost of silicone molding, making its use with urethane casting an ideal solution for prototype development and low volume production.

• Silicone molding offers lead times of three to seven days at just one-tenth (or less) of the cost and time of an aluminum tool. Silicone molding is an attractive alternative for producing many injection, compression and rotationally molded plastic parts.

• Silicone molds are capable of reproducing extremely complex
  geometries and very fine details. Due to the cycle time, cost per piece and tool life, silicone molding is ideally suited for applications producing 1 to 100 parts. However, since the tools are inexpensive and quickly made, the creation of multiple silicone rubber molds to produce larger numbers of parts is a viable option.

Silicone Rubber Materials

For rapid prototyping, the recommended type of silicone material is two component addition silicone rubbers that consist of:

•  Vinyl base polymer
• SiH base hardener
• Platinum based catalyst

These silicone materials are translucent with very little shrinkage (<0.1%).
Type of chemical reaction: addition