microBACK

During anastomoses work it is good practice to use a background in order to create a cleaner working area with good contrast. Mercian Surgical Supply Co Ltd sells excellent Visibility Background Material, they are sterilized and ready to use in clinical work and therefore also expensive, at least for use in a microsurgical training situation.

During microsurgery training cut pieces of blue or green lab gloves are often used, this is suboptimal since the glove material is not flat, the texture is different and there is no grid.

In order to let the participants use backgrounds with similar function as the Mercian visibility backgrounds that they hopefully will be using in the clinic without the high cost  for the training facility backgrounds were molded in silicon using a 3D printed mold

First step is to print the mold, it was modeled in Spaceclaim and printed on a Formlab 2 at the highest resultion setting. 

There are four different molds generating four different thicknesses

The molds have a a 1×1 mm grid that 

The steps for molding the backgrounds are outlined below.

Step 1

The mold needs to be greased so that it will be possible to remove the silicone. Use Vaseline to grease the mold and a clean lint free compress or cloth to wipe of the Vaseline thoroughly

Step 2
You need a cover glass further on  in the process.

Step 3

Mix the 2 component RTV silicone and pour it on the mold and spread it over the entire mold.

Step 4

Use the cover glass to scrape of the excess silicone and then let the silicon set. 

Step 5

Peal of the silicone  

You can download the STL files

0.40 mm mold

0.45 mm mold