Silicone Damper Pad

Making your own silicone damper is relatively easy. All you need is a suitable mold, silicone casting compound, and a soft felt or cotton cover. The biggest difficulty is ultimately applying the damper pad to the damper bar, as silicone does not bond well (in fact, almost not at all) with metallic materials, but the problem can be solved.

Casting Mold

I made my casting mold from 3D-printed parts. To do this, I screwed several mold elements together (according to the required length) and closed them with two end pieces. By 3D printing the molds, I was able to create a W-shape for the damper pad. 

Download W-Casting Mold (40 mm width and 12 mm height)

A very simple alternative without 3D printed parts is to use a suitable aluminum U-profile from a hardware store, taping the ends together. The result is a rectangular silicone damper.


Silicone

For casting silicone, I use the extremely soft TFC silicone rubber type 13 translucent Shore 00 from TrollFactory, but I think there are also alternative suppliers.


Execution & Assembly

As explained above, silicone cannot be bonded to metal. This means that the silicone does not adhere well to the damper bar and can therefore fall off or shift during transport. There are basically two ways to connect it to the damper bar:

  • Wrap the damper and silicone with cotton cloth (molton cloth) and then secure with screws or rivets. John Mark Piper describes this method in the video linked.

  • Side bonding with a felt overhang made of self-adhesive feltz
    • To do this, place a sufficiently wide strip (approx. 12 cm) of self-adhesive felt tape with the protective film removed into the mold before filling it with silicone. However, the felt tape tends to float in the silicone. Therefore, the felt tape must be fixed in the casting mold. I managed to do this with two narrow strips of double-sided adhesive tape in the mold, but it didn't always work.

    After filling the mold with silicone, the self-adhesive felt tape protrudes on both sides and can be used to fix the damper pad to the damper beam.

    You can find suitable felt strips here, for example.