When a customer sends us a new silicone project, one of the first things we look at isn’t the color.
It isn’t even the silicone hardness.
We look at the structure.
Where will the parting line go?
Is the wall thickness reasonable?
Where can air become trapped?
Will the silicone fill the thin section properly?
Can the finished part be demolded without deformation?
And if this becomes a 4-cavity, 8-cavity or 16-cavity mold, will every cavity behave the same way?
These questions used to depend heavily on tooling experience and repeated mold trials.
Experience is still extremely important.
But in 2026, silicone manufacturing is increasingly adding something else to the process:
simulation before steel is cut.
That direction is particularly visible this week at LSR 2026, the international Liquid Silicone Rubber Conference taking place September 14–17 in Akron, Ohio.
The conference is bringing together silicone material suppliers, molders, equipment manufacturers and engineers to discuss new silicone chemistry, processing technologies and applications across medical, automotive, electronics and consumer products.
And one of the most interesting themes this year is how manufacturers can understand the molding process before physical production begins.
Traditional silicone mold development often follows a familiar process:
Product Drawing → Mold Design → Mold Manufacturing → Trial Mold → Find Problems → Modify Mold → Trial Again
That works.
In fact, mold trials will always remain important.
But every problem discovered after mold manufacturing becomes more expensive.
Imagine that an LSR component has a very thin sealing wall.
The mold is manufactured.
During the first trial, the silicone doesn’t completely fill the thin area.
Now the engineering team needs to determine why.
Is the gate too small?
Is the gate in the wrong position?
Is the flow path too long?
Is air trapped near the end of filling?
Is the material viscosity unsuitable?
Does the wall thickness need to change?
Some problems can be solved by adjusting process parameters.
Others require modifying the mold.
And in the worst case, the product design itself needs to change.
That is why the industry is putting more attention on:
DFM + simulation + tooling experience
before manufacturing begins.
DFM means Design for Manufacturing.
The basic idea is simple:
A product shouldn’t only look good in CAD.
It also needs to be designed so it can be manufactured reliably.
For silicone parts, that means considering things such as:
These factors are connected.
For example, changing the location of a parting line may improve appearance—but make mold construction more difficult.
Increasing wall thickness may make filling easier—but change flexibility.
Making silicone softer may improve comfort—but make demolding more difficult.
Adding an undercut may improve sealing—but increase tooling complexity.
A good silicone product design therefore balances:
product function + appearance + material behavior + tooling + production cost.
That is the real purpose of DFM.
One of the September 16 sessions at LSR 2026 focuses specifically on using CAE simulation to optimize rubber, silicone and thermoset molding from design through production.
CAE stands for Computer-Aided Engineering.
Instead of waiting until the mold is finished to see how silicone flows, simulation attempts to model the behavior digitally.
Engineers can study things such as:
How will the cavity fill?
Where does the flow front meet?
Which areas fill first?
Where could air become trapped?
How does changing the gate position affect filling?
What happens if wall thickness changes?
This doesn’t mean software magically designs a perfect mold.
Simulation is another engineering tool.
The results still need to be interpreted by people who understand silicone materials, tooling and molding.
But it gives manufacturers more information earlier.
And earlier information is usually cheaper information.
Liquid silicone rubber behaves very differently from conventional thermoplastics.
LSR has very low viscosity before curing.
That allows it to flow into:
thin walls
small features
complex sealing geometries
fine textures
This is one of the reasons LSR is so useful.
But the same characteristic creates manufacturing challenges.
Silicone can flow into extremely small gaps.
That means poor mold fit can create flash.
And when you’re producing precision seals, medical components or electronic parts, even very small amounts of flash may be unacceptable.
This week’s LSR conference is discussing exactly these kinds of processing challenges, including material rheology and how LSR’s molecular structure influences viscosity, shear thinning and processing behavior.
For a product designer, the practical lesson is simple:
LSR geometry and mold design cannot be separated from material behavior.
Customers sometimes contact us with a drawing and say:
“Please quote this in 50 Shore A silicone.”
That’s a useful starting point.
But Shore hardness doesn’t tell the entire story.
Two LSR materials with the same nominal hardness can behave differently during molding.
Viscosity matters.
Flow behavior matters.
Cure characteristics matter.
Compression set matters.
Tear strength matters.
Bonding behavior may matter.
The keynote at LSR 2026 this week specifically explores how polymer architecture and silica-filler interactions influence rheology, viscosity stability, green strength and final part performance.
For buyers, this is why selecting silicone only according to:
food grade + hardness + price
can sometimes be too simplistic.
The material needs to fit both the application and the manufacturing process.
Gate location looks like a tiny tooling detail.
It isn’t.
The gate determines where silicone enters the cavity.
Move it, and the entire filling pattern can change.
For a simple silicone washer, this may be relatively straightforward.
For a complex 3D silicone component, the decision becomes more important.
A poorly positioned gate may contribute to:
It can also affect automation.
If the final product needs automatic demolding, the gate and runner design need to support that production strategy.
This is why we prefer to review the product before the mold structure is finalized.
Sometimes a very small product-design adjustment gives the mold designer a much better solution.
Customers usually see the finished silicone product.
They don’t see the microscopic engineering around the mold cavity.
Venting is a good example.
When silicone enters a mold cavity, the air already inside needs somewhere to go.
If it can’t escape efficiently, manufacturers can encounter:
short shots
burning
incomplete filling
surface defects
unstable molding
But vents can’t simply be made very large.
Remember—LSR flows extremely well.
If the vent is too large, silicone may flow into it and create flash.
So mold engineering becomes a balancing act:
let air escape without letting silicone escape.
These are the details that make two molds producing the same-looking product perform very differently in mass production.
Suppose a customer needs 20,000 parts.
A single-cavity mold may be enough.
Now suppose the project grows to 2 million parts per year.
Production efficiency becomes much more important.
The customer may need:
4 cavities
8 cavities
16 cavities
or more.
Now every cavity needs to fill consistently.
A small imbalance can create:
cavity 1 — good part
cavity 2 — good part
cavity 3 — slightly underfilled
cavity 4 — flash
This is one reason advanced LSR manufacturing is putting more attention on process control and cavity balancing.
Earlier this month, ELMET announced a new intelligent LSR cold-runner system that continuously analyzes injection behavior and automatically balances individual cavities. In testing with a 16-cavity mold, the company reported reaching balance after 20 shots.
That is a good illustration of where the industry is moving.
The goal isn’t simply:
more cavities.
It’s:
more cavities with predictable consistency.
Not every LSR project involves large shot volumes.
Medical, electronics and precision industrial applications can involve extremely small silicone components.
At LSR 2026 this week, equipment specialists are also discussing positive shot-size control, repeatability and management of very small LSR shot volumes.
For small parts, tiny variations become proportionally much more significant.
If a component weighs only a fraction of a gram, a very small dosing variation can influence:
part weight
dimensions
flash
filling consistency
This is where equipment precision, mold precision and material control all meet.
All this discussion about simulation and LSR doesn’t mean every product should switch to liquid silicone injection molding.
Far from it.
At DX, compression molding remains extremely useful for many custom silicone products.
It can make sense when:
The key is choosing the manufacturing process according to the project.
A customer producing 5,000 relatively simple silicone parts has very different requirements from one producing 5 million precision seals.
This is why the question shouldn’t be:
“Is LSR better than compression molding?”
The better question is:
“Which process makes sense for this product and volume?”
Silicone overmolding adds another level of complexity.
Now we’re not only asking how silicone fills the mold.
We also need to think about the substrate.
That might be:
silicone + plastic
or
silicone + metal.
At DX, silicone overmolding can be used for projects where silicone needs to combine with rigid components to provide sealing, grip, cushioning or other functions.
But successful overmolding depends on several factors:
Does silicone chemically bond to the substrate?
Do we need mechanical locking features?
Can the insert withstand molding temperature?
How will the insert be positioned?
Can silicone flow underneath or around it?
How will the finished component be removed from the mold?
This is why overmolded products should ideally be reviewed before the rigid component design is frozen.
Sometimes adding one small groove, hole or undercut to the substrate can significantly improve mechanical bonding.
Making that change in CAD costs almost nothing.
Making it after tooling is completed doesn’t.
When sourcing custom silicone parts, it’s natural to compare mold quotations.
Supplier A:
$3,000 mold
Supplier B:
$4,500 mold
At first glance, Supplier A looks cheaper.
But tooling price is only one part of the project.
Imagine the cheaper mold creates:
more flash
more manual trimming
slower cycles
higher scrap
frequent mold maintenance
Now calculate those costs across 500,000 parts.
The “cheap” mold may become expensive very quickly.
This is why we think buyers should look at:
Total Manufacturing Cost
rather than only:
Tooling Cost.
A good mold is designed around the production quantity it needs to achieve.
There isn’t one answer.
For relatively simple silicone products, moving directly into production tooling may make sense.
For complex projects, we may recommend more development work first.
That can include:
3D model review
DFM analysis
prototype samples
material evaluation
trial tooling
mold-flow analysis where appropriate
The objective isn’t to make product development unnecessarily complicated.
It’s the opposite.
The goal is to find expensive problems while they’re still cheap to fix.
If you’re asking for a quote for a custom silicone part, sending more information usually produces a better manufacturing recommendation.
Ideally, provide:
3D CAD file
STEP or similar 3D formats are extremely useful for mold evaluation.
2D drawing
Include critical dimensions and tolerances.
Material requirements
Food contact? Medical? Industrial? Electrical?
Silicone hardness
If known.
Operating environment
Temperature, chemicals, UV exposure, compression or repeated movement.
Annual quantity
This helps determine tooling and process strategy.
Target market
Especially important for regulated products.
Assembly information
Tell us what the silicone part connects to.
A silicone seal viewed alone may look simple.
Once we understand the assembly, the design requirements often become much clearer.
This week’s LSR 2026 conference makes an important change in the industry very visible.
Silicone manufacturing is no longer just:
customer sends drawing → factory makes mold → factory molds product.
More sophisticated projects increasingly follow:
Application → Material → DFM → Simulation → Mold Engineering → Process Development → Validation → Mass Production
That doesn’t mean every silicone spoon or gasket needs advanced simulation.
It means manufacturers now have more tools available when a project becomes difficult.
And we think that’s good for customers.
Because the best time to discover a molding problem is before the mold exists.
At DX, we manufacture a broad range of custom silicone products and silicone parts using processes including compression molding, liquid silicone injection molding and silicone overmolding.
Our role starts before production.
Depending on the project, we can work with customers on:
product structure
silicone material
hardness
mold design
parting-line strategy
surface texture
color
overmolding structure
production process
secondary operations
assembly and packaging
For straightforward projects, that keeps development efficient.
For technically demanding projects, it helps identify potential manufacturing issues earlier.
Either way, the goal is the same:
build the product correctly before building thousands of them.
If you’re developing a custom silicone product, precision silicone part, silicone seal, gasket, LSR component or silicone overmolded part, send DX your drawing, STEP file, sample or product concept.
You don’t need to know whether compression molding, LSR injection molding or silicone overmolding is the right process yet.
That’s something we can evaluate together.
DX can support your project from product and mold design through tooling, molding, secondary processing, assembly and OEM/ODM customization, including custom material, hardness, color, Logo and packaging.
Contact DX before opening your next silicone mold. A few engineering decisions made early can save a lot of time—and cost—later.
Discuss Your Custom Silicone Project with DX
Reference： LSR 2026 Official Conference Program · Moldex3D LSR 2026 CAE Simulation Session · ELMET Smartshot i LSR Mold Technology
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