Quality Wins a New Rubber Moulding Customer 

We were recently approached by a long-established UK manufacturing company to produce a rubber collet which was bespoke to their needs.   

The company is a market leader in the manufacture of variable rate spraying equipment, and their products are used across a range of global industries and applications.

The rubber collet they required acts as a valve to control the flow of liquid in variable rate sprayer nozzles.  To achieve accurate flow rates the customer required a high-quality rubber nozzle which was durable, uniform in shape and of the correct material hardness.  Unfortunately, the parts they had been receiving from a foreign supplier had not met these requirements and they were getting more than a 60% failure rate, which was simply not acceptable.

The customer approached the Clifton Rubber team at a trade exhibition and asked for help.  He needed a reliable supplier.

The customer issued us with a drawing of the part against which our estimators could confirm costs.  Prices were quickly agreed, orders received, and our design engineers set about designing the mould tool, which was then manufactured in-house by our dedicated toolroom engineers.  We quickly had a first off sample produced for our customer to inspect, test, and approve, before we went into full batch production.

The new rubber collets proved to be a success. They are fully tested by the customer before use and since switching to Clifton Rubber there has been significant improvement in quality with a minimal failure rate.  This has helped the customer achieve consistently accurate flow rates whilst saving costs.

The customer’s Sales Manager commented: “Quality is key.  It must be top notch.  It looks simple but it’s a very technical part and precision is of the utmost importance.  We needed to source a new supplier who were reliable, and UK based.  

Clifton Rubber made us some samples and we simply couldn’t believe how good they were.  The quality was second to none.”

Successful Bespoke Polyurethane Project for Manufacturing Company

We were recently approached by a company enquiring if we could manufacture a very specialised, bespoke polyurethane product for them.  The company is an industry leader in their field, but their existing supplier was no longer able to supply them parts,.  Therefore, the company was looking for a new supplier who could manufacture their polyurethane product in the UK.

The product is a complex inflatable polyurethane bladder with an integrated stainless steel inflation valve, which would also need to be manufactured by our in-house precision engineering department.  Following an initial meeting, and inspection of the item, we discovered not only would this polyurethane bladder require a slightly different polyurethane casting process, but each part would also need to be fully tested to ensure it maintained a specific pressure for a fixed duration.  

After spending some time investigating best manufacturing methods, we carried out extensive trialing in conjunction with our customer, to ensure parts met their strict quality requirements.

The trials were successful, and we are now processing regular orders of polyurethane bladders for our customer and recently received the following commendation:

‘We received the bladders today and I wanted to give you some feedback. Please can you congratulate your guy who makes these as they are the best we have received, not saying the others are bad, but these are almost perfect in every respect, so congratulations on a job well done. keep it up!’.

A Polyurethane Solution Provides a Quieter Working Environment

We have just completed a successful polyurethane moulding project for a Maintenance company specialising in Lifting Equipment.   

The company use carriage wheels on a metal track for lifting equipment in their workshop. However, the sound of metal on metal is quite loud and distracting for those working with the equipment below.  They wanted a more silent solution. 

The company approached our in-house design team who looked at whether we could come up with a solution whereby the wheels were covered in rubber, to see if this would make things less noisy.  

This resulted in a very happy customer.  There was a noticeable reduction in noise and the poly covered carriage wheels will be put in place across the whole workshop.

We now have a second batch of 28 units in production with more to follow.

Phi Holt, our Sales Executive commented: 

“We were able to work with the customer to provide a solution that was cost effective and created a safer working environment for their workforce.  Our in-house design and production teams were able to produce some prototypes for trial and then we worked together to create the final product for introduction into their workshop.”

Bespoke Rubber Roller Solution for Subsea Solutions Company

Always striving to offer bespoke solutions to meet specific customer requirements, in whatever industry, we recently worked on a rubber roller covering project for a company in the Offshore industry.

The Company needed a solution for a client who works in the Oil & Gas Industry and were looking for a specific coating for a large offshore pipe, that would need to withstand severe offshore conditions.

The coated pipe was required to prepare a detailed system mock-up for trialling the fitness for purpose of coating removal tools that were to be supplied for the maintenance of submerged vertical pipelines for an Oil & Gas Operator in North Africa. 

We were able to supply a representative coating of the appropriate thickness and hardness to match the condition of the offshore pipe.  This was to ensure that the test mimicked the conditions expected offshore as much as possible, such that the test was of significant value to CSS and their Operator Client thus minimising operational risk.