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Wednesday 6 June 2018

Curiosity topic-5 How Erasers are made

How are rubbers made?
First, they put some synthetic rubber into a mill. The rubber passes repeatedly between large, heated rollers. They throw in any defective erasers from the last run, recycling them into a new batch. Then they add sulfur as a curing agent, accelerators to help the sulfur do its job and red colouring to turn the rubber red. They blend everything for five to 10 minutes or until the mixture is the consistency of heavy dough. Next, vulcanized vegetable oil(vegetable oil treated with sulfur). When the colour and thickness are just right, workers remove the rubber, which by now is hot and soft as a result of all that milling that it had me through.  They leave it to cool and harden at room temperature for about half a day. When the rubber ready they cut out large squares(each weighing between five and eight kilograms depending on the thickness of eraser the client has ordered). The squares go into a steam-heated press to cure for about 20 minutes. The pressure compacts the rubber while the intense heat hardens it. they trim off the excess. They submerge the rubber squares in cold water to stop the curing process. Next, it's cut into bevelled strips from two batches of rubber. They add blue rubber that contains pumice which allows it to erase ink. They pair up each pink with a blue to form a two colour strip. It's then steam pressed. After 12 minutes workers remove the trays and trim off excess and submerge the strips in cold water to stop the curing process. Then they cut the strips into the size of the erasers. Then its all packaged up and ship out. 

Now I'm wondering how they put the eraser on to a pencil?

1 comment:

  1. Hi Neika
    I like how you added in the video. maybe next time you could only use one term like only eraser or only rubber.

    ReplyDelete

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