Chemical Activation – Chem Cure

Recently, we’ve been doing experimentation on ways to enhance viscoelastic stiffness and bond in gum natural rubber thereby minimizing flow and/or sag.

Sometimes one needs to assemble a thick section of gum rubber by layering up four or more 1/4″ plies of gum rubber to 1″ thick or heavier.

In laboratory trials, we have found that Chemcure will enhance the stability of the natural rubber even though it’s not designed for chemical cure.

Our test plates made with layered 1″ thick vertical block showed that samples without Chemcure cold flow when exhaust steam cured whereas the block coated with Chemcure maintains stability.

It was also found that by incorporating 10% by volume of Chemcure into #3 tack cement creates a Chemical Bond that will enhance the adhesion on chemical cure lining up to 40 pounds plus, where without the activation one obtains approximately 25 pounds per inch of peel.

We cannot guarantee your results with this chemical activation, but you may want to give it a trial. We certainly appreciate feedback on you results.

The above Blair Rubber technical bulletin was written by Richard K. Lewis, Retired Executive Vice President, Blair Rubber Company. Blair Rubber’s technical staff can provide further assistance with Blair’s products and questions/answers that are not addressed in this bulletin.