Silicone & Rubber Parts Production With 3D Printing

Low-volume production of soft or flexible parts can be technically challenging, costly, and slow. Many professionals use 3D printing to manufacture rapid tooling for molding and casting silicone parts, or to directly 3D print flexible parts. Desktop 3D printers offer many benefits, including design flexibility within CAD software, high accuracy, easy iterations, and quick turnaround times.

Rapid Tooling For Low Volume Silicone and Rubber Parts

Combine 3D printed rapid tooling with traditional manufacturing processes to produce limited quantities of silicones and rubber parts with a flexible, agile, scalable, and cost-efficient tooling process. You can use 3D printed molds or patterns with the following manufacturing processes:

Injection molding
Compression molding
Casting
Overmolding and insert molding

How It Works

Step 1

Design

Design your mold in CAD. Depending on the part geometry and design, you can create a compression mold, injection-filled mold, overmold, or eggshell mold.
Step 2

3D Print

Choose the right resin from our expansive materials library and 3D print the mold on a Formlabs SLA 3D printer.
Step 3

Fill the Mold

Prepare your mold for casting by applying protective coatings and mold release. Then, prepare the silicone material of your choice and fill the mold.
Step 4

Post-Process

De-mold and trim the silicone part and post-process it if needed.

Learn More

silicone molding webinar
On-Demand Webinar

How to Produce Silicone Parts With 3D Printed Tools

VItal Auto Automobile
White Paper

Silicone Part Production With 3D Printed Tools

Psyonic uses silicone insert molding to create fingers for prosthetic hands.
Case Study

How PSYONIC Developed a Bionic Hand Using Additive Manufacturing

Dame Products employs silicone insert molding to encapsulate internal hardware for customer beta prototypes.
Case Study

Silicone Overmolding of Customer Beta Prototypes

Directly 3D Print Soft and Flexible Parts

Replace outsourcing and molding of silicone, urethane, and rubber parts. Formlabs 3D printers and materials offers multiple alternatives to produce complex and low volume flexible, elastic, and durable prototypes and even produce end-use parts in-house in a matter of hours.

Explore the Materials

swim goggles
Soft Flexible Prototypes
Elastic 50A Resin
Wearables, such as straps
Compressible buttons
Stretchable enclosures and casings
Soft tissue anatomy
OXO peeler prototype
Hard Flexible Prototypes
Flexible 80A Resin
Handles, grips, and overmolds
Cushioning, damping, and shock absorption
Seals, gaskets, and masks
Cartilage, tendon, and ligament anatomy
3D printed shoe sole
Elastic Production Parts
Rebound Resin
Production parts
Resilient, springy structures
Handles and grips
Complex gaskets and seals

A Full Suite of 3D Printing Solutions

Maximum Versatility

Form 3+

Produce flexible parts and molds with a high-quality surface finish and fine features in record time.

See the Form 3+
THINK BIG

Form 3L

Take control of large-scale part production, increase your throughput, and bring your biggest ideas to life.

See the Form 3L
OXO silicone gaskets

Get Started Producing Silicone Parts With 3D Printing

Contact a Formlabs Solution Specialist to get started with 3D printing for silicone and rubber production today.