Flexible material for engraves

[ElsieH]

I could, but the thing is, I need the mold to release the dough after rolling it in to make the shape. I have a texture mat that is flexible, and you put it on top of the dough and roll to make the impression. Then peel off the mold and bake. If I do that with acrylic, I don’t think the dough will come out easily (I guess maybe if I spray Pam on it, it might work but be messy). The silicone mats I have are not the scale I want, so I was trying to figure out how to make one.

[eflyguy]

Aha! Now I am with you.

I think molding silicone over something you engrave on the GF will be easier than vac forming.

[ElsieH]

Yes! So, do you know how to do that? What do I need to get and how does it work? I was hoping I could just engrave something directly on silicone or something similar on the glowforge, but if there’s a way to do it two step, that’s fine too.

[eflyguy]

You may be able to engrave directly onto silicone mats depending on thickness. You may be able to make your own mat (pour into a flat dish, cure, remove, revert to step 1). You may also be able to mold over something else (acrylic) in a dish, and create a mat with the detail already.

Honestly have no experience with any of this but Google will surely help…

[jamesdhatch]

@cynd11

seems like you should be able to buy and engrave sheet silicone in whatever thickness you need

You can. I make gaskets cut from silicone for a local aircraft maintenance company. I’ve only used 1-3mm stuff but if you can source thicker it will at least cut. I haven’t engraved it. I have saved custom settings so I can repeat the jobs when they modify the part design that needs the gasket.

It makes black stinky residue all over the inside of the GF even if it’s “clear” but Windex or IPA cleans it.

I use smooth textured stuff but I did get a batch of it with a textured pattern when I was experimenting. Not sure how dough would stick or not stick.

[eflyguy]

@jamesdhatch

IPA

Sacrilege!!

[jamesdhatch]

@eflyguy

Sacrilege

Wrong IPA The medicinal 91% kind, not the relaxing 6 proof kind

[ben1]

Aren’t most IPAs more like 12 to 16 proof? 50% alcohol, 100% proved?

[eflyguy]

6% ABV, technically 12% proof but nobody measures beer that way.

[henryhbk]

I do my bucks in hard material (either acrylic or 3D printed plastic) and then vacuform food-grade polypropylene sheets over the top. They are great for chocolate molds. Obviously not for baking in (if you want that use silicone), polypropylene sheets would burn up at baking temperatures. Silicone molds are good to 450F (230C if you aren’t in the US)

[henryhbk]

BTW here was my original post on the topic:

First attempt at a mold for chocolate

We always have a large thanksgiving dinner (typically 25-35 people) so placecards are helpful for keeping some sense of order. At other large gatherings I have done puzzles, and engraved acrylic place cards: However this year, I decided that chocolate placecards would be a great project. So I started with Thick clear acrylic. and in AI make the text a compound path in a filled black rounded rectangle so the name would stand up. I increased the power a smidge as I wanted deep lette…

There was an update (I got better at producing the molds)

[ChristyM]

I hope you try engraving the silicone and let us know how it goes. Cuz now I’m curious.

[henryhbk]

@ChristyM

I hope you try engraving the silicone and let us know how it goes.

Actually one of my very innovative things I have done with the GF was in fact I lasered silicone impregnated material (and displayed this at MFNY sponsored by GF). But no I meant cast the silicone in a mold.

[ChristyM]

Pics?

@cynd11 had suggested engraving the silicone itself. It’s an interesting idea…

[henryhbk]

My medical molding projects

Believe it or not, we did a second molding project at the same time as the above (pretty sure I am going to die of some exotic cancer due to all the silicone that got splashed on my skin despite gloves, etc)… So if you recall way back, we were also working on a molded colon. Well that got a lot of attention this week. First off I tromped off the OR with my colleague Tom (one of our colorectal surgeons) to look at the much more closely than in prior cases at a colon. since the case was not a can…

This was the original post where I described it.

[Xabbess]

@ElsieH

release the dough after rolling it

I get what your meaning…sort of like those beautiful engraved rolling pins. What about a wood block of some kind?

[ElsieH]

Definitely requires some thought… which I am not capable of right now, just back from 3 day field trip chaperoning 7th graders. But, I do know that I want to see if I can source some kind of thick-ish silicone sheeting, that’s my first choice. If not, I think I will look into engraving acrylic and doing casting of some kind. For this year, I might well just engrave directly on the material if I can get it to work, but it would be nice to know I can make my own mold for future reference, that won’t be so time consuming. Thanks all for the replies!!

[eflyguy]

I’m sure you saw this already:

First project: bucks for candy mold

My daughter has to do a project on a molecule. She chose theobromine, which is part of chocolate. Part of the project is an “artistic representation”. She/we decided to make chocolates with the theobromine molecular representation on them. While making the second training project (storage box), I had her make a doodle that we scanned and engraved. She was the one that wanted to do the same thing with her drawing of the molecular representation, instead of 3D printing one. So, she drew it up a…

[ElsieH]

Wow, I’m way behind and had not. Thanks!

[henryhbk]

Best technique is really to produce bucks (the positive) and cast a mold around it in silicone (or vacuform like I did for my chocolate). Casting with silicone is super easy to make molds. Silicone is great as nothing sticks to it, and it be flexible it’s easy to get things out of the molds… Of course if you are making bucks, in general to facilitate mold removal, you want to add a draft angle (the object should wedge in towards the middle so that as the object starts to pull out of the mold less and less is in contact breaking suction…