The Super Gasket is an engineering resource that shows features, functions, and fabrication methods for custom rubber gaskets. This 9-in-1 design tool from Elasto Proxy also demonstrates how outsourced gasket fabrication can help you to reduce manufacturing waste. When you look at the Super Gasket in terms of business benefits, you’ll discover how you can reduce scrap, cut labor costs, and speed installation times. The cost savings don’t end there either.

Super Gasket Materials

Rubber profiles come in compounds with different material properties and environmental resistance. Commercial grade rubber costs less than specialty compounds, so it’s important not to “over-engineer” a rubber gasket. Elasto Proxy can help you to avoid this type of manufacturing waste, a form of over-processing, through better compound selection. As the Super Gasket shows, rubber profiles also come in low, medium, and high densities that provide different amounts of cushioning and impact resistance.     

When you work with Elasto Proxy, our solutions providers will help you to select rubber with the right durometer, or hardness, for your application. Let’s say you need rubber for door gaskets. We’ll help you to avoid rubber that reaches compression set, the permanent deformation of a material when a compressive force (such as a closed door) is removed. We’ll also help you to avoid rubber that’s too hard to allow the door to close. Instead of wasting money on the wrong material, you’ll get what you need.          

Super Gasket Cutting

The Super Gasket also demonstrates the value of water jet cutting, a gasket fabrication method with cost-saving advantages over both manual cutting and die cutting. If you’re cutting gaskets by hand in-house, you’re paying for mis-cuts and material waste. You’re also paying for labor, which can get expensive if you’re asking a highly-skilled employee to do the cutting. These workers aren’t using their true expertise, and unused knowledge is another form of manufacturing waste.  

As the Super Gasket shows, water jet cutting also makes notches and holes. Die cutting can do this, too, but you’ll have to wait for and pay for tooling. By contrast, water jet cutting is a tool-less process with quick turnaround times. You might be able create notches and holes with manual cutting, but the defects that result are manufacturing waste. Inefficient notching also results in wasted motion, such as when workers spend time searching for tools or struggle to make cuts with the wrong type of tool.  

Super Gasket Bonding

If you’re bonding gaskets in-house, you might not have a choice in joining methods. As the Super Gasket shows, however, Elasto Proxy lets you choose the best bonding method for your application. If you need gaskets in low volumes, consider cold bonding with or without a sealant. There’s no metal tooling to wait for or pay for. PE film splicing, another bonding method, provides strong bonds and fast cycle times. Gaskets that last longer and take less time to produce add value you won’t get by doing the work in-house.        

Finished gaskets from Elasto Proxy also reduce waiting, a form of manufacturing waste that can occur when workers who bond gaskets don’t have the cut lengths that they need. Plus, each finished gasket uses just the right amount of material. This helps to reduce not just inventory waste, but also related forms of waste such as transporting coils of rubber from inventory to assembly. Expertly bonded gaskets also eliminate defects and over-production, waste that can occur when products are expected to fail.     

Super Gasket Fastening

Finally, Elasto Proxy’s Super Gasket features cost-saving alternatives to traditional fastening methods. The notches that water jet cutting makes can accommodate screw or bolt heads, but metal fasteners require hand tools and added labor. By contrast, plastic push pins and high-bond adhesive tapes speed installation times. Plastic push pins won’t pop out and cost less than metal fasteners, too. Powerful adhesives can join almost anything and, like plastic push pins, don’t require labor-intensive manual operations.         

The Super Gasket is a 9-in-1 design and engineering tool you won’t want to miss. It’s also a great way to see how you can reduce manufacturing waste with outsourced fabrication that adds value. Would you like to see the Super Gasket for yourself? Click here to get started.

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