Bed material idea

So I was at my Mother-in-laws this weekend and noticed something that she was using for some baking. It was very similar to this, except it was larger and smooth:

[www.google.com]

What about using something like this as a bed material? Has anyone tried something like this? It's heat resistant up to 360C... I wonder if the extruded plastic would stick to it...

... interesting idea, could be good for adhesion/stickyness too ...

I made some moulds from high-temp 2K-silikone, what seems to be the same stuff: - heatresistant continuous until 350 centigrades and short time exposure until 480 centigrades.

When pouring on a plate it would form a uniform surface, merely elastic, so it would act as stable surface but when applying force to the fabbed (stiff) object, it should go loose too ...

Viktor

ooh, if this stuff works as a base, it may be the perfect material for a y-axis conveyor belt

Mothers-in-law can be useful sometimes...

I was wondering how much work has been done on bed materials. I cannot find anything on it on the forum and on the website. I was wondering if a textured metallic plate would do the trick? I plan to use an aluminium bed, maybe with a thin net on top of it. Has anybody tried that?

I have a 6mm thick aluminium plate with a CNCed swirl pattern on it which I will be trying sometime this week and will blog how it goes.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

When I built my heated base plate, I attempted to print directly on the aluminum plate. I've finally found something that is worse than trying to print on MDF! I suspect the aluminum pulls the heat out of the melted ABS faster than the ABS can find little nooks and crannies to stick to. Kind of a reverse Leidenfrost effect.

I use a piece of cotton fabric over the heater, which sticks well and is easy to remove, but it warps with the part. It is thin enough that it doesn't insulate the part from the heated base plate.

Would it be worth trying overhead projector sheet (OHP), it comes in different kinds, for lasers, inkjet, etc, but don't know what the difference is, maybe the laser one can stand higher temperatures, polyurethane foam may work, "the stuff used for insulating hot water tanks" you could set the nozzle a fraction below the surface for maximum adhesion???.

What about a cork sheet?
I have seen (http://www.economy-point.org/i/ignition-temperature.html) that it can hold up to 300C, it is a very good insulating material so it won't drag the temperature out of the object, it has a high friction so the object should stay in place, it is easy to cut and quite cheap.
The only problem I see now is that it is not a very solid material and it may bend, so a metal sheet would probably be needed as a support underneath.

I got terrible results with silicone with HDPE, I used an ikea flat silicone baking sheet which warped massively with temperature. It also didn't adhere particularly well, though that is probably more HDPE-specific. If ABS or PLA, or a different temperature HDPE could be made to stick to it, and a very thin layer of silicone could be firmly attached to a rigid board, it might work out well. It does have the advantage of conducting heat very well, so a heated build surface would be feasible.