Once mixed and coloured, silicone rubber can be extruded into tubes, strips, solid cords or custom profiles to the manufacturer's size specifications. Cords can be joined to make O-rings and extruded profiles can be joined to make seals. Silicone rubber can be moulded into custom shapes and designs. Manufacturers work to set industry tolerances when extruding, cutting or joining silicone rubber profiles. In the UK this is BS 3734 and for extrusion the tightest level is E1 and the widest level is E3.



Silicone rubber is used in automotive applications, many cooking, baking and food storage products, apparel including underwear, sportswear and footwear, electronics, home repair and hardware and many unseen applications.

Liquid silicone rubber is also used in life science applications (syringe pistons, seals for dispensing systems, gaskets for IV flow regulators, respiratory masks, implantable chambers for IV injections), cosmetics (mascara brushes, cosmetic packaging, cosmetic applicators) and lipstick molds and optical products (circular lenses, collimators, Fresnel lenses and free-form lenses).

Freeze-resistant solar water heating panels use silicone's elasticity to repeatedly adapt to water expansion when freezing, while its extremely high temperature tolerance remains below freezing brittleness and has excellent temperature tolerance above 150°C (302°F). Its chemically strong silicon skeleton, rather than a carbon skeleton, reduces its potential as a food source for dangerous waterborne bacteria such as Legionella.

Non-dyed silicone rubber tape with an iron (III) oxide additive (which gives the tape its reddish-orange color) is widely used in aviation and aerospace wiring applications as a splicing or wrapping tape due to its non-flammable properties. The iron oxide additive increases thermal conductivity but does not alter the high electrical insulation properties of silicone rubber. This type of self-fusing tape fuses or fuses to itself so that when stretched and wrapped around cables, electrical joints, hoses, and pipes, it bonds into a strong, seamless, rubbery, waterproof layer of electrical insulation, although not an adhesive.

Silicone rubber can be made electrically conductive while retaining most of its other mechanical properties by adding carbon or another conductive substance as a powdered filler. It is therefore used for flexible contacts that close when pressed, in many devices such as computer keyboards and remote control handsets.