What is Rubber Roller Coverings?
What is Rubber Roller Covering?
A rubber roller is composed of a rigid cylindrical inner hub, shaft or tube covered by an outer layer of elastomer material, typically rubber or polyurethane.
Rubber rollers are used in many industrial applications such as for driving conveyors, handling and conveying materials, printing, laminating etc.
What is a Rubber Roller Made of?
The inner shaft of a roller can be made from various rigid engineering materials including steel, aluminium or non-ferrous alloys or some engineering plastics like polypropylene. The outer elastomer layer can be fabricated from any of the major rubber materials such as silicone, EPDM, neoprene, nitrile or natural rubber. Polyurethane elastomers can also be used to cover rollers.
The choice of covering material depends on the end application of the rubber roller. For example, natural rubber has strong physical characteristics such as high abrasion and tear resistance, good mechanical grip, and excellent flexibility. It is therefore suitable for most industrial applications. However, natural rubber is not suitable for applications which are in regular contact with oils, solvents or high temperatures where a silicone or nitrile may be more suitable.
What is the rubber covering process?
The first stage of the process involves prepping the roller drum. If refurbishing an existing roller, then this stage will start by stripping off the existing rubber covering. The face of the drum is shot blasted in one of our blast cabinets to provide a strong key between rubber and metal substrate and then coated with a chemical bonding agent to adhere the compound to the roller.
Once prepped the roller is covered with the specified rubber compound in an uncured form using one of several in-house covering techniques.
The uncured rubber covering on the roller must then be vulcanised to create the solid rubber lining suitable for the end application. This is achieved using an industrial autoclave which applies the required heat and pressure necessary to vulcanise the raw rubber material. At Clifton Rubber we have several industrial steam autoclaves with capacities up to 3m in diameter and 8m in length. This capacity flexibility makes us an industry leader in the coating of rollers of all shapes and sizes.
The final stage of the process involves finishing the roller to the specified size and profile as required to suit our customer’s application. Our precision grinding equipment can grind rollers to the most demanding tolerances and our advanced profiling techniques enable us to cut a wide range of patterns to suit specific roller requirements.
Typical finishes include:
- Parallel Ground
- Plain Finish
- Diamond Pattern
- Chevron Grooves
- Crowned Face
- Tracking Grooves
- Tapered Finish
We offer a range of covering options. We can cover new rollers free issued to us, strip and re-cover existing rollers or manufacture complete rubber covered rollers including the fabricated steel or aluminium drum and shaft. Our engineering unit has a highly skilled workforce and advanced CNC milling and turning equipment offering the capability to manufacture high quality steel rollers, roller components and roller assemblies.