I love the idea. I agree that it seems a bit expensive for a workmat.
I think the number one thing I would use a silicone mat for is soldering.
Any specs on the silicone temp ratings? If I drop my iron on it will it ruin my mat?
The material is rated to 400° F, so your soldering iron would likely only damage it if was in prolonged contact with the mat. A friend of mine has one of the amazon cheap ones and he's managed to scorch it in places, but he's notorious for leaving his iron on overnight even.
I know the price is itchy. I have called a total of 6 Silicone injection molding specialists and they all say that the part is too big. Compression molding is the manufacturing process used to make stuff like this but I am having some trouble finding a domestic manufacturer for a part this size, and colors may be limited. This will likely always be a hand cast product. The materials and pigments and time involved are not insignificant, even at 55 gallon drum levels. I know this is going to limit our market reach but ultimately the product will be really high quality and beautiful.
Thanks everyone and please please ask any more questions you can think of, because it's difficult to know every blind spot.
We plan on machining the master blank this week and start prototyping asap. As soon as we have a few happy samples we will move into presale so we can start getting our heads around what our production set up will look like. Fortunately we are a small team and can still push our other projects down the road while producing these mats, so don't be surprised if you see a small blitz of IC's and presales of products we have been working on for the better part of a year, really exciting stuff!