Silicone Injection Molding
Diving with Liquid Silicone
With the help of liquid silicones from WACKER SILICONES, a completely new diving mask was developed. The resulting sports product has set new standards in soft/soft two-component injection molding.
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WACKER’s liquid silicones enabled development of a totally new diving mask.
The market for sports equipment differs from most consumer markets: there’s something new in the shops every season. But tight schedules often mean the novelty factor merely refers to new colors or a slight design change.
Mares, a long-established Italian company, chose a different path. Its X-Vision series of diving masks is now produced with a sensational technology known as LiquidSkin.
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The liquid silicone injection molding machine has two injection units feeding into a single mold. The process is over when a robot removes the finishe
Two-Component
Injection Molding
The silicone part of the mask uses two transparent colors. There is a good reason for this unique design: the silicone touching the skin is soft and fits perfectly, whereas the rest of the frame is firm and stable.
That inspired the mask’s designers to create a two-component silicone mask made via a soft/soft two-component injection molding process using liquid silicone.
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The two-component silicone mask is made via a soft/soft injection molding processing using liquid silicone.
Mass-Producible Two-Component Silicone Parts
This was a very demanding task, because soft/soft injection molding poses different challenges from those of hard/soft composites. Admittedly, the plastics experts do not have to contend with a heat-sensitive component, because both the silicones involved curing with heat.
Yet instead of a fixed-geometry substrate to be overmolded, there is just another flexible component. But all the effort put into this novel design was worth it – and led to the first genuinely mass-produced two-component silicone/silicone part.