Today, having just retired, I am starting to work here with Alex in the shop. I learned how to cut out a button mold in rubber. This is the same kind of rubber as the car tire. First we molded up the button and put them in the vulcanizer. Sandwich press on space steriods. Once the mold was vulcanized, the cutting of the interior of the mold cutting of the mold gate (that is where the metal flows). I use the scalpel to follow the outline imprinted in the rubber and soon the mold has been cut.
The fun part of this is my husband had his right arm worked on and cannot use it, so he was sitting right next to me squiggly and squirmy as I cut away.