For those making vulcanized silicon molds, you can try this: Take a
piece of baking parchment paper or really any other thin paper that
writing can be seen through and with a graphite pencil write the
pertinent mold info on one side. Now turn the paper over and trace
what has just been written which will now be in reverse. Place the
paper reverse reading side against the outer layer of rubber and
vulcanize normally. When the mold is finished you’ll have made an
indelible “tattoo” on the surface of the mold. This works on Zero-D
Zero Shrink rubber and may very well work on other silicon
vulcanized mold rubbers as well… you’ll have to run an experiment.
We could all take a giant leap into the 21st century and use RFID chips embedded in our silicon molds.
Neat thought, but not sure this fixes or improves much. The readers
you’d then need cost a bunch of money, and the chips themselves
aren’t exactly free either.
And I don’t see how this speeds up finding the mold you’re trying to
locate beyond perhaps being slightly quicker to read an individual
RFID tag than it might be to visually read a label. Maybe. If your
molds are organized and stored reasonably logically, you don’t have
a problem in the first place, as any given mold normally would be
“where it’s supposed to be”. (Until, of course, Mr.
Murphy enters the shop…)
Our product is clear silicone RTV as well as a range of heat cures.
The Sharpie paint pen works nicely, though you may have to re-trace
the numbers as the paint starts to wear off. With care, the paint
will last through many handlings of the mold…
Regards,
Bill Mull
Zero-D Products, Inc.
After getting all the helpful suggestions here for how to mark
silicon RTV molds, I kinda conflated a few suggestions and came up
with a good result.
I cut a strip from a disposable pie pan, set it on a polishing cloth
just to have a little padding, and wrote on it (into it) with a
ball-point pen.
This was not as deep or as crisp as a label-maker would do, but had
the virtue of being easy and requiring no investment or supplies I
didn’t have.
Attached the strip to the mold frame with double-stick tape before
spraying, legible side facing the frame.
Voila! The aluminum peeled off and the mold came out with a
permanent, legible label formed right into it.
Thanks, everyone!
Noel
PS It comes up every few years, but I forget that it will-- Though
my name is really a male version, I am, in fact, female (born on
Christmas Eve).
Also, there is supposed to be a dieresis (umlaut) over the “e”,
making it No-el, not “nole”, but somehow this is not possible here on
Orchid. Not that you need to know this, but periodically I get an
email, always from a guy who has been imagining me as male for months
or years and is flabbergasted to have to make the shift. If you’re
curious, google my name…
One little trick you can try, although not permanent, wipe mold area
with denatured alcohol, write with ballpoint pen then, rub corn
starch over writing. Larry Paul