Liquid silicone rubber capacity has been expanded to support personal wellness component programmes. This note covers what was added and, more importantly for buyers, what documentation ships with every lot.
What was added
- Additional LSR injection presses in the 100 to 200 tonne range, suited to the thin-walled, high-cavitation parts typical of the category.
- Clean handling at the demoulding station, because silicone parts pick up contamination that a visual inspection will not catch.
- Post-cure capability for peroxide-cured compounds, so the choice between platinum and peroxide systems is a specification decision rather than an equipment constraint.
Why the documentation matters more than the presses
The capacity expansion is less significant than the system that runs on it. Every lot now ships with:
- A hardness measurement against the specified tolerance, recorded per lot rather than per batch of pellets.
- Platinum residue levels, tested per lot for platinum-cured compounds.
- A retained sample set from the start, middle and end of the run, held for traceability.
- A lot certificate that references the compound grade, the cure system and the press used.
The reason for the last item is that a silicone part's properties depend on the cure, and the cure depends on the press temperature profile and the shot time. A lot certificate that names the press makes a field failure traceable to a specific process window, which is what turns a complaint into a corrective action.
What it means for lead times
The added capacity shortens the queue for tooling trials and pilot runs, which is where silicone programmes usually lose time. Production lead time for repeat orders is unchanged, because it was never the constraint. The pilot-run queue, which previously ran two to three weeks, now runs inside one.
Related reading
Our platinum-cured LSR programme runs on this capacity, and the certification guides cover the certificate set in detail.
Related product categories
The materials and part types discussed above are grouped in our sourcing directory:
