Shop Tips: Save Your Silicone Pads
We’re back with another shop tip from Frank Ippolito’s new shop space! This week, Frank explains why he saves silicone pads from the bottom of his mixing containers, and how those pads can be used for future projects. Post your own shop tips in the comments below!
Shot by Joey Fameli
Edited by Adam Isaak
18 thoughts on “Shop Tips: Save Your Silicone Pads”
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I’m digging the new intro 😀
Liked the new intro art. Sad to see that Jamie won’t really be part of the site.
Love the new intro. I hope Jamie is having the time of his life now that he can make dangerous robots again without having to worry about redoing things for the cameras 🙂
To new intro is cool, but so is the tip.
When I have an open mold, I use these as covers, to get a smooth surface 🙂
But make sure there is no uncured silicone attached, otherwise it could get on your hands and all the stuff/tools you touch, or worse ruin the mold with uncured silicone.
Frank-
Have you ever considered building a silicone tabletop surface so you have a larger work area? Possibly a rolling cart with silicone top?
If you’re an avid solder-er, and wear contact lenses (painfully specific I know) you can use a saline/lens solution bottle to hold your distilled water for wetting your sponge. Good squirt stream for wetting the sponge. FYI, don’t use saline (salt bad) or tap water (minerals bad) for your soldering sponge.
Vi vill se mer Simone!
Awesome tip, but awesome-er new intro! Very excited for the coming months!
that tip is painfully obvious, but only after you’ve been made aware of. would’ve never thought of using silicone leftovers that way!
i like the new intro as well, at least in spirit. for now, i’m finding the pixel art a bit too noisy/greebly, but this might change with repeated viewing.
Very much like the new intro. I assume that is our Queen of Shitty Robots on the frame with Frank? And I just noticed Jamie isn’t on the logo any more. A pity he didn’t contribute more, but c’est la vie. Looking forward to where Tested goes.
I use scrap HDPE as CA glue trays. CA glue, even the really thin and fast stuff, doesn’t like to bond strongly to HDPE. I’m pretty sure that CA bottles are actually HDPE. The glue also doesn’t seem to evaporate or set very quickly when in contact with the HDPE tray even in the open air, which gives me a lot of time to pick up the glue with a toothpick and apply it to small parts. I do this when I’m building plastic models or anything that’s too small to apply the glue directly from the bottle.
That’s a good idea.
Although I think the smooth-on stuff he uses is only 30A hardness. I think he would need something closer to 55A.
In fact, it would be cool if Frank to a video on different harnesses.
Clever. I like this tip
Also good cut up as spacers at the bottom of dump molds, particularly when parts of the object being molded need to be held up… use less new rubber in the mold due to the space being taken up by the old/scrap rubber.
I always assumed you used these as registration keys in molds, but yeah nothing sticks to it so it’s perfect for bonds or paint.
Great tip, I always mix epoxy on old business cards from previous companies that I have worked for. Problem with that is all the bad memories and reasons for leaving come flooding back!
It’s also useful to keep any extra silicone when making molds because you can cut up the old material into chunks to use as either filler, placed into large voids in the pour mold, or stuck to brush on molds as cleanly shaped keys for a mother mold.