With technology constantly changing, it would be naive to turn a blind eye to new ways in which you can improve production processes which can help raise the quality of your products, regardless of your industry.
At Silicone Engineering, we had always used the more conventional way to talc our silicone sheeting which was a very simple process. An operator would apply talc onto the sheeting and a roller would then coat the sheeting evenly, as shown in the picture below. It was an effective process however very little control could be gained as to how much was applied and as we mentioned at the start, times and technology moves on. The silicone, especially coloured silicone would lose it’s true appearance due to a layer of talc covering it. Although not effecting the quality or performance, the company believed we could improve this stage of the manufacturing process significantly.
Talc, although necessary to stop the silicone sticking together in production, it can also cause inconvenience further down the supply chain with converters and fabricators as too much talc can effect machinery.
In light of this, Silicone Engineering set out to explore new technologies to improve our talcing process and made the decision to invest in the latest machinery (seen in picture below) to allow the talcing process to be thoroughly controlled with the beauty of tailoring talc coverage on customer demand. This gave a cleaner finish and a extra light even covering of talc.
To read more about our new talcing process and how this increased the quality of our sheeting, read our article in The Manufacturer which explains in detail our journey to install the state of the art talcing equipment.