At CB Frost, we supply extruded rubber profiles for various industrial sectors. With our in house manufacturing capabilities, we custom make rubber extrusions in an extensive range of solid rubber and sponge compounds to suit the intended application. With our many years of experience in manufacturing and supplying extruded profiles, we are here to help you select the right materials and processes to suit your needs.

The Process for Rubber Extrusions

Before we discuss in more detail some of the processes we can use for fabricating and reinforcing extruded rubber profiles, it’s important to understand the basic rubber extrusion process and the type of parts that are commonly created through the extrusion process. 

As with rubber moulding, the extrusion process starts with a compound of raw rubber materials, which are placed under heat and pressure to achieve a certain shape. However, rather than raw rubber compound being placed into a mould, the extrusion process begins with the production of a die. 

A die is a piece of tooling designed to produce parts with a specific cross-section profile, achieved when the heated rubber compound is pushed through the opening of the die at a high pressure. In order to ensure that the die maintains its shape and provides a consistently accurate cross section, it is manufactured from materials such as stainless steel, which is able to withstand high pressure, temperature, and will not suffer degradation such as rust.

To extrude rubber, the raw compound is placed into a hopper, which directly feeds into the die. As the rubber is fed into the die, it is placed under increased temperature and pressure so that it swells and is pushed against the edges of the die so that when it escapes through the opening of the tooling, it has been formed into the cross section of this negative space. The finished product can then be supplied in coils, or cut to specified lengths, depending on the customer’s requirement.

There are a range of benefits to extrusion as a production method, for example, it is an economical way to manufacture rubber parts due to it being a low waste manufacturing process, as parts can be cut down to the required length. In some cases, parts of the same fabricated profile can be cut to multiple different lengths; this is particularly useful for extruded rubber parts such as:

• Window seals
• Door seals
• Edge protection seals
• Dust seals
• Vibration reducing gaskets

Extruded Rubber Fabrications

In addition to simply providing rubber extrusions in coil form or cut to size, we can also use different manufacturing techniques to fabricate or bond extrusions together to suit certain applications.

Hot spliced extruded seals

The hot splicing process bonds the ends of extruded profiles together using a thin film, which is then subjected to heat from an infrared light or more conventional heat source, in order to create a solid bonded seal. Hot splicing allows for rubber exdtrusions of different lengths to be bonded together to create new shapes for seals and gaskets.

Vulcanised extruded seals

Vulcanised joining is another process used for joining together rubber extruded profiles into rings and mitred corners, using the same rubber material for the joints as the extrusion. This highly reliable and cost-effective joining process provides an almost invisible join and is commonly used to create products such as tubing, O-rings, and square/rectangle profiles in low volumes.

Your Extrusion Needs

Talk to us today about your extrusion needs. As specialists in rubber extrusion and conversion, our sales team are always on hand to talk you through the best suited materials for extrusion, along with the manufacturing processes to provide the best product to suit your application. Please contact us by calling 0121 773 8494 and we will be happy to be of assistance.