Successful Rubber Reproduction Test
 

Hi, all. As you may have seen, I've been exploring options for reproducing rubber parts from old appliances for quite awhile. Having been unable to find a source to custom make my own, I decided to partner with the maker lab at my school and experiment with how to produce them myself. After a few weeks of trail and error, I've been able to successfully reproduce a motor mount from a 1950s Oster blender.

Basic pattern is to use CAD or a 3D scanner (both available via the lab) to 3D print a mold, and then press some silicone putty (regularly available at Michaels) into it for 20 or so minutes while it cures.

The downside is I can't choose colors, so while this stuff is great for internal parts, I'm not quite at external yet. I've been granted the clearance to experiment with color matching, and have found a source for the materials, so I'll update if and when that gets figured out.

As I said in another post, we're looking to offer part reproduction as a way of raising funds. If anyone needs rubber parts reproduced, let me know and we can look into it.

Have you tried Sugru? Available in a bunch of colors....

https://sugru.com/

Are you able to get the correct rubber hardness (durometer) ?

For my purposes this will work, but the tolerance was pretty flexible. My main goal was to reproduce the design at all. Matching hardness is definitely possible, but I'd need to look into being able to measure the old part more accurately before I can do so.

Noice.