Rubber-like material PVC Jelly

 

As I mentioned in many of my posts, there are natural rubber and synthetic rubber. Moreover, there are a few names of synthetic rubber such as synthetic latex, SBR, and neoprene. On top of that, there are rubber-like materials such as silicone, and jelly rubber. Jelly rubber is made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) that has softeners (called phthalates) added to it. 

Many of the rubber-like fashion products available on the market are made of this material, such as this shoe

Moreover, they are using heavy machinery such as this to produce it. It is called Jelly Injection Machine.  

The machine uses PVC Compound like this, melted the compound, and injected them into the mold.  

This is the 3D animation video on how this injection machine works 

As you could probably guess that, it is a big scale business. So, something big like shoes maybe is not doable on a small scale. But something small like a keychain can be done at a small workshop. I am from Indonesia and I found this video in the Indonesian language but the steps are pretty simple to give you an idea of how the keychain is being made.

I hope this post is useful for those of you who would like to give this rubber thing a try.