We'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and we look forward to hearing from you in the New Year!

We wish all staff, customers and associates taking a break over this time a very happy holiday and we look forward to resuming normal service reinvigorated the second week of August.

WXrubber

On occasions product specifications brought to us can be in excess of 25 years old often utilising materials and technologies that are obsolete. In these circumstances there is a much better chance of achieving a result if the customer is able to listen to sensible suggestions to bring the product up to date with certain modifications. Despite the product performance matching or surpassing the original we are sometimes met with the reply "specification says no".

We respect and up hold the use of specifications in certain environments but at times they can be at the expense of progress. Often they were established during a product development phase and have been religiously followed over years without due thought to changes and advances in the industry. Perhaps the specification devotion is symptomatic of the drain of experienced technicians from the rubber industry over the last 10 years? In today's pressurised business environment it could be deemed more secure to stick with the tried and tested formula and anything else seen as too risky. Or perhaps the rise of the buyer and the procurement department has separated the skill set required to make informed technical decisions during the new business process in the pursuit of driving down costs, even though readily available materials could be more cost effective.

The good news is that we have a successful rubber sheet and rubber coated fabric design and development service at White Cross Rubber to help customers, amongst other things, revaluate old specifications. We provide modern thinking to established practices and I'm pleased to say that we enjoy a good discourse with all our customers allowing product performance and quality as well as price to benefit.

The rubber properties chart provides a quick resource to look up which rubbers (or elastomers) will be most suitable for any given application or service environment, choosing the right rubber is critical in achieving optimal performance across a variety of uses. Certain rubbers offer good mechanical properties whilst others provide excellent chemical resistance etc., some excell across all parametres. If in any doubt when specifying a rubber the advice of a trained rubber technologist should be sought who can provide expert advice. Beyond the commonly used elastomer types exists a myriad of more specialist blends and formulas which can balance and extend performance to meet a wide variety of criterias.

White Cross Rubber specialise in manufacturing technical rubber products in sheet-form; rubber sheet, reinforced rubber sheet, rubber coated fabrics and composite rubber sheet. We provide expert advice, formulations and products to meet the demands of customers across a wide variety industries.

Feel free to contact us with any questions relating to the rubber properties table or with any technical rubber sheet, reinforced rubber sheet, rubber coated fabrics and composite rubber sheet enquiries.

A rubber calender is used in the rubber indutry to manufacture rubber sheet. Viscous rubber compounds are squeezed through a small gap between parallel rotating heated steel cylinders. On the other side you get a controlled rubber sheet in thicknesses from 250mym to 6mm, running for as long as you like. The size of the calender determins how wide you can manufacture, what gauge control and tolerance you can offer and how much output you can achieve in a shift.

At White Cross Rubber we are fortunate to posess exceptional calendering capability in two seperate calendering lines. Calender 1 manufactures wide width rubber sheet up to 1.9 metres wide, 0.5 metres wider than the industry standard providing benefits in conversion and fabrication practices. We're not sure that a wider calender is in operation in the UK? Further more thin gauge rubber sheet is produced as thin as 250mym with a tolerance of +/-10%. Calender 2 is a huge machine by UK standards, as the industry has declined there are not many 4 bowl inclinded Z calenders with three mill automated feed still producing. It allows us to manufacture high quality rubber and TPE sheeting in bulk quantities and is the perfect complement to the more technical calender line.

Supported by coating lines and various curing facilities, WX posess a comprehensive rubber sheet-from product manufacturing plant who's capability can assist UK and world industry step ahead in the knowledge quality is managed under a single roof. The team posesses a wealth of experience and expertise that is available to design and develop products as well as custom calendering and manufacturing services.

We're not saying biggest is always best but for some industries knowing that such facilities exist in the UK could dramatically improve their own production processes; technical support, sound relationships and wider widths. Do you know of any bigger calendering facilities in the UK?

Following it's ongoing success, our blog platform has been updated to make it more user freindly. If you're an avid interent user then follow our rubber industry blog. Visitors can now access articles by via the archive and by theme to keep track of what's going on.

Our Linked In page is up and running and active so if you're a member be sure to become part of our network. If however you prefer to keep in short and simple then seach for WhiteXRubber on twitter for the most recent news in just 140 characters!

Keeping abreast of the latest developments in rubber sheeting and rubber coated fabrics has never been easier and of course we'll be checking out what you have to say as well!