Quality
Eight checks between raw polymer and your goods-in
Rubber hides its defects. An under-cured part looks perfect and fails four months later. That is why the controls here weight process discipline far more heavily than end-of-line sorting.
- Inspection stages
- 8
- First-article approval
- Always
- Compound traceability
- By recipe
Raw material verification
Every batch of polymer, filler and curative arrives with a supplier certificate and is checked against it before it goes near the mill. A wrong grade caught here costs nothing; caught after moulding it costs a whole batch.
Compound control at the mill
Mixing is done to a recorded recipe for that part. Because we mix ourselves, the compound is repeatable batch to batch and traceable if a question ever arises.
Cure control
Time, temperature and pressure are set for the compound and the section thickness. Under-cure shows up months later as compression set; over-cure as brittleness. Neither is acceptable.
Post-cure where required
Viton and silicone parts go through the 8 kW electric oven for secondary cure. This is the step suppliers cutting corners leave out, and it is the difference between a Viton seal that lasts and one that does not.
Dimensional inspection
Checked against the approved drawing or the golden sample. Rubber is measured under defined conditions — it is not steel, and a part measured wrongly is a part rejected wrongly.
Hardness verification
A Shore A durometer reading on every batch. Hardness is the single most useful proxy for whether the compound and the cure came out as intended.
Bond integrity check
On rubber-to-metal bonded parts the bond is pull-checked. A mount that debonds in service is worse than no mount at all, so this is inspected rather than sampled.
First-article approval
On any new part you receive a physical sample to approve before a production quantity is released. Nothing goes into batch until you have held it in your hand.
What we commit to
We are a small works and we do not carry a wall of certificates. What we do carry is a straightforward set of commitments, with the proprietor’s name on them.
- Written quotation confirming compound, hardness and tolerance before order
- A physical first sample on every new part, before production
- Traceable compound recipes for repeat orders
- Honest advice when the material you specified is wrong for the duty
- Tooling retained here, so repeat orders do not restart development
- Replacement of any part that fails against the agreed specification
Testing beyond our own equipment
Hardness testing and dimensional inspection are held in-house. For tensile, elongation, compression set, ozone ageing or specific chemical compatibility work, accredited laboratories within the MIDC estate and around Nashik are used, and the report is issued with the consignment where a customer requires it.
If your incoming quality process needs a particular test or a specific report format, tell us at the enquiry stage rather than at despatch and it will be built into the job.
Discuss your QA requirements