Mailbag.

Dear editor:

Just read your editorial in the July issue, and I agree it's about time the rubber industry got its act together at the NPE show. Having a pavilion of its own where one could see and find what I consider the material for the future should help open some eyes. Of course, I felt it was a godsend back in 1980 when I specified Santoprene resin to replace the typical rubber materials that we had in our equipment that we were selling to the printed circuit market.

We had manufacturing etching machines that used a horizontal type conveyor made of a 2" wheel and rollers. These were made of Tygon, EPDM or Viton, depending on what chemistry was used by our customer. At times, the chemistry was changed to something else, and our machines suffered down time because of compatibility problems. Our making use of those early versions of TPE allowed us better resistance, plus lower costs. We could mold the parts in house and reuse the scrap.

Later I got manufacturing to replace the impellers of the centrifugal pumps we made with a high durometer Geolast. Prior to that, we were having them cast out of titanium. Myself and two other engineers who helped with the project entered this concept in the Shell TPE Innovative Product contest and received a 2nd or 3rd place. As I recall, that was in 1990, and I still think of many other items which would soon be made from those TPE, TPN, TPV resins.

It amazes me that many folks don't understand what TPE is and are missing out on its usefulness. Even though I'm retired, I still look forward to getting Rubber World and appreciate in-depth articles on these resins, as well as any new compound of rubber.

Stan Smith

Dear editor:

I noticed that you ran the release about ASTM creating a new category for natural rubber latex (http://www.rubberworld.com/news). It's important also to note that Yulex latex is the only material that fits in the new category providing a new level of safety for medical product manufacturers that are concerned with protein content that cause latex allergy.

Betsy Brottlund

Yulex Corp.

Dear editor:

We are looking for a non-staining type antiozonant for natural rubber. We now use TMQ:4020 1:1, both are staining.

Dharmik Patel

Ahmedabad, India

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