Mold release prevents damage to test equipment.

Ricon Resins was delighted with the new additive it was using to improve the rubber-to-metal adhesion of its "functionalized adhesive." Its use yielded greatly improved bonding characteristics without the need for any special preparation of the surface; no additional primers, adhesives or other surface preparations were required to achieve a tenacious bond between metal and rubber.

But that tenacious bond became a problem in itself. As happens in many technological advances, "improvements" often create new difficulties which R&D or plant engineers must solve. And that's what happened here. The bonding was so good that every time Ricon tried to run curing tests on the new adhesive, its rheometer locked up, causing severe damage.

Finding the right solution

Ricon Resins is an industry leader in the development of specialty liquid polybutadiene resin products. A fast solution to its premature lock-up problem was critical; not just for its own Grand Junction, Colorado headquarters laboratory, but for its customers as well. As product development engineer John Labriola explains it, Ricon understood that "wherever metal molds or injection molding dies were involved, we needed to find a way of assuring that bonding happened only where we wanted it to." Durability and quick release were the key.

During Ricon's testing stage, uncured rubber incorporating the new additive is placed in the rheometer's die. The rheometer rotates the die back and forth as it is heated up. As the rubber vulcanizes, the rheometer measures the toruqe required to continue the back-and-forth rotation, quantifying the cure rate. Ricon's new bonding additive worked so well that the equipment locked up and would not turn, causing damage that required up to $600 to repair each time it happened.

To solve the problem, Ricon had tried various non-stick sprays and spray-on mold release agents -- without notable success. Then they turned to General magnaplate, Linden, NJ. Magnaplate suggested Nedox MR-3, a specialized synergistic coating with excellent mold release characteristics for plastics, urethane, epoxies and rubber.

Coatings with a difference

The synergistic coatings applied by Magnaplate are not coatings in the general sense of the word because they are actually impregnated into the metal substrate. The coatings are created during a multi-step process that begins with a series of specialized cleaning treatments.

The substrate's surface is enhanced by conversion, depositing thermal spray -- or a blend-matrix of all three -- depending on the metal and the application requirements.

In the Nedox process, which was used to solve Ricon's problem, metallurgical technicians deposit a coating of a nickel alloy onto the metal surface. This deposit contains countless micro-pores which are enlarged in a series of proprietary treatments. The surface is then sealed with a controlled infusion of sub-micron-sized particles of selected polymeric materials. These particles are mechanically bonded and locked in by a proprietary process to become a permanent, integral part of the newly-reinforced surface layer (figure 1). The metal substrate is then given a finalstage, Magnaplate-developed treatment which insures a thorough cross-linking integration of the polymer particles into the top layer.

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The enhanced surface that results is extremely hard, extremely smooth and dry-lubricated. Magnaplate-coated surfaces exhibit superior abrasion and corrosion resistance, protection against chemical attack, and permanent nonstick and anti-static properties. The treated surface will not chip, flake, peel or rub off. Since the resultant surface is superior in performance to both the base metal itself and to any of the individual components used in the enhancement technology, the Magnaplate coatings are considered "synergistic."

Pioneering synergistic coatings

In the 1950s and 1960s, Magnaplate pioneered the development of synergistic surface enhancement coatings for the broad spectrum of metals used originally in America's space program. Today, Magnaplate-applied coatings are used not only in space, but for such down-to-earth applications as the prevention of abrasion, erosion and galvanic corrosion of plastic molds; the protection of the huge boring machines used in digging the England/France "Chunnel" from salt water corrosion; the permanent lubricating and hardening of high-speed machinery's aluminum guide surfaces; the solder-spatter-rejection on double wall copper tubing machines; and a host of other applications. The principles of synergistic surface enhancement coating technology, though, remain essentially the same whether the application is for space exploration or for mold and die release.

How Nedox solved the rheometer release problem

With their new functionalized polybutadiene additive achieving adhesion of up to 3,000 lbs/[inch.sup.2], Ricon engineers knew that the release performance of their rheometer die surfaces -- and their customers' mold surfaces -- was critical. Durability and quick release were vital to success and Nedox MR-3 fulfilled both needs.

Todd Speece, Ricon's Director of Marketing and Sales, says that the company has "found that we cannot operate our system unless it is coated with Nedox. Because the surface enhancement is such a good mold release, it allows us -- despite our very strong adhesion promoter -- to test the additive within our system without locking up our rheometer."

Other uses

The same level of performance was immediately evident when Ricon tested Nedox-coated molds. "We've gone over six months in the lab," reports Labriola, "and have put very-highly adhesive materials into our customers' molds. We still have not run into any problem, and expect to get a year's wear before the molds need to be replaced." Customers will be attracted to the benefits, according to Labriola, "a year's wear equals a lot of cans of sprays."

He also confirmed the observation that a solution to one problem can often create new ones. But solving those problems can lead to even better products. He remarked that some of Ricon's "customers monitoring the release performance of their synergistically coated molds think that we must be using secret technology and hesitate to let others inspect the molds."

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