Embedding Power Mesh into silicone?

So I'm building some wound packing props for medical training and I'm running into issues with getting the power mesh to take. In the first photo (pardon my notes to myself) you can see the top "skin" peeled off where I laid it down. It was between the "meat" layer and skin layer. On the bottom photo I did a top pour and it caused an air pocket where the silicone didn't penetrate the power mesh.

I'm looking for ideas on how to better embed the power mesh into the silicone since the "mesh" is pretty tight and it seems the silicone isn't penetrating it well.

Materials are Dragon Skin 10 NV for the bottom "meat" and Ecoflex 00-30 for the top "skin". I also tried all Dragon Skin 10 and got the same peeling results. Thanks in advance.

Hi
Don´t know if you can do this in your mold but it can help if you layer the mesh working it with a brush (and silicone) before pouring silicone on it ,letting it kick a little before doing so. This would help the silicone to "tangle" into the mesh. And don´t let the silicone cure totatly before pouring..

Allso, if t´s hard to adapt the mesh to the shape it can help that the silicone is a bit thickened. But I think you can´t thicken Ecoflex 00-30, it would have to be DgSkin or other.
Thickening silicone will affect silicone stretchiness (less) and tear strength though. Not sure what this is used for.
But thikened silicone has helped me out more than once to adapt mesh with silicone.

Thank for the tips. I'll try brushing in the silicone on the next run.

Power Mesh? What is it there for? The silicone should be strong enough on its own. Is there a reason to add the mesh? can you go without it? Can you find a mesh with a looser weave?


Just my thoughts, but I agree that brushing the silicone onto the mesh and letting it cure would be the best way to attach to the mesh. This is because silicone will stick to silicone very well. The cured silicone-coated mesh won't want to contour to a shape as easily as uncoated mesh, but it is workable.