This week my focus material is Natural Rubber (NR) or what is commonly referred to in the rubber trade as Commercial Rubber, with the most common variant being NR / SBR (Styrene Butadiene Rubber) - a blended material grade giving commercial benefits whilst ensuring that the key material properties are still suitable for the main applications.
Watch this video which shows how to tap a rubber tree:
My recommendations for where a Natural Rubber would excel are in applications requiring wear resistance and higher levels of tear and tensile strength. Natural Rubber is also my 'go-to' material for high static loads and under certain conditions where a lower temperature environment is involved.
Here at MacLellan Rubber, we already have available a number of high quality, European manufactured NR Rubber materials delivering a variety of material performance advantages, for example:
We also supply a huge amount of 8313 / 8172 Commercial Rubber and commercial insertion which is my general purpose grade used in thousands of applications in the gasket and sealing market where there are no extremes.
A full list of our available materials and further technical information can be found here on our website, each page also gives you the option to download a full technical data sheet.
Check back to see what material choice will be my next Material of the Week!