We provide extrusions in rubber and plastic. A rubber extrusion is the rubber you find around around your seals – for example door seals & edging seals around a car door or window. A rubber extrusion is usually what you would find on a gasket seal also. A plastic extrusion is what you find making up tambour doors & edging strips.
Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-section. A material is pushed or drawn through the customised die of the desired cross-section. The die shape then internally changes along its length into the final shape, with the suspended centre pieces being supported from the back of the die. The process begins by heating the stock material. It is then loaded into the container in the press. A dummy block is placed behind it where the ram then presses on the material to push it out of the die. Afterwards, the extrusion is stretched in order to straighten it. One advantage of extrusion is that the cross-section ratio can be very large while producing quality parts.
Extrusion may be continuous or semi-continuous, using hot or cold materials. The plastics we use at RTP Manual Handling are of a high standard of quality. The two main advantages of this process over other manufacturing processes are the capacity to create complex cross-sections and the ability to work with brittle materials, as the material only encounters compressive and sheer stresses. It also produces parts with an excellent surface finish.
