At A Crossroad: Making small silicone containers

My goal is to ultimately produce small food grade silicone containers with (at this point) not a lot of minute detail, a few curves and some tight angles (If possible) mostly. However, silicone mirrors even the finish of a mold and there can be no sanding of the finished product, only flash trimming. In addition to the design requiring a two part mold, I am struggling with how best to achieve my design goals with these limitations. I am attracted to the high resolution of resin for printing molds but am a bit leery of the messiness of it (although I have a majority of the ppe needed) if it’s that much of a hassle. I’m attracted to the versatility of fdm machines, solely for the fact that I am wanting to explore other endeavors in the future beyond my current project. I expect to spend around a thousand or so for the machine and materials/upgrades needed and would like the most bang for my buck. Fdm would require printing a model, finishing, with possibly a lacquer to gloss??, casting a 2 part silicone mold, and Then casting my silicone product into the silicone mold. I am loath to cast silicone in silicone, which is why resin is so attractive to me. I realize there is a plethora of options for mold release, but without other people’s input, I am hesitant to rely on that when making a decision on which printer to purchase. And please, for the love of all that’s holy- if I’m over thinking this like I always do, please help pull my head out of my arse!

what sort of size moulds do you want to make ?

yeah having read a bit more about resin recently.
I'd want to avoid it myself.
Long term health issues are apparently quite common.

You can get fairly smooth prints at 0.1mm layer height. And a little sanding and a paint finish should do the job well enough.


A thousand what ?
dollars (american, australian, canadian) pounds, shekels, euros.
:-)

*face palm* I literally had Just read the same gentle rebuke on thinking the world revolves around Americans with no concept of other currencies, and vowed to make no such mistake myself. So intent for your guidance was I, that I slipped Right back into that self centered mindset the moment I started typing.

My little containers will be anywhere from 25mm x 25mm to about 38mm x 38mm so the actual molds maybe 4” x 4” tops.

I’m concerned about printing molds on fdm and not being able to sand negative spaces to my liking with the angles and curves I want to use, and printing models would require silicone on silicone casting which i was trying to avoid. After some research it definitely seems possible, but more work indeed.

And Thank You, Curious. Your responses are much appreciated.

I think a resin printer would be best. The annoyance of operation will not come close to the annoyance of post-processing every single FDM part.