Manufacturing Facilities

Horizontal Block Splitting

We have two of these machines and they allow us to horizontally split polyurethane, polyethylene and rubber materials from their original block size into sheets with a thickness from 1mm and upwards with a tolerance of +/- 0.5mm.

Vertical Band Knife Cutting

These machines vertically cut sheets of foam into finished part form. They are suitable for high volume production and have a cutting tolerance of +/- 1mm maximum. They are most commonly used to cut ceramic filter foams, ink-jet foams, and packaging foams.

Adhesive Coating

To give the customer total peace of mind, we apply a primer coat of PU adhesive onto our foams prior to adhering the self-adhesive tape. This process guarantees “foam tear”, which means there is no chance of the self-adhesive peeling away from the foam. This process is not used by any other UK foam converter so therefore cannot offer yourselves such a quality guarantee.

Heat Fabrication

This machine was specifically designed by ourselves, it’s heated rollers allows us to apply self-adhesive tapes and aluminium foils to all our foams and rubbers, whilst in roll form. Therefore we can offer high volume production runs of self-adhesive backed rolls at a low cost.

Die-cutting

This is a very traditional and effective method of cutting parts from sheets. We currently have over six thousand cutting die-tools in stock and twelve die-cutting presses. Our in-house tooling department can produce new tools within one hour from receiving the customers specification, meaning when we receive your new enquiry in the morning, we have the capability to despatch your completed order by the same afternoon. This level of service is unparalleled within our industry.

Water-Jet Cutting

Water Jet Cutting is a process of machining utilising water & abrasives that are pressurised to create a “beam” of fluid that will cut through almost any material. The water is pressurised at up to 4000 bar (60,000 psi) and then forced through a directional nozzle. Abrasives within the solution ensure that the cut is swift and smooth with minimal edge burring and no material deformation. We can use this process to cut any material from paper, rubber, foam right through to graphite, brass, titanium & ceramics. We can even cut bullet proof glass, marble, steel and granite.

This technique has many benefits over traditional cutting methods. Here are the key benefits:

- No cutting tools required
- No material discolouration
- No heat distortion or discolouration
- No product burring
- Suitable for polished surfaces
- Cuts virtually any sheet material
- 3metre x 1.5metre cutting area
- Suitable for material up to 100mm thick

- Ideal for production of prototypes
- No second operation finishing required
- Suitable for long or short production runs
- Tight radii cuts achieved accurately & reliably
- Suitable for complex 2D or even 3D shapes
- Cost saving achieved through nesting of same or different components
- Accuracy to 0.1mm

Kiss-cutting

This machine is designed to produce smaller parts with a self-adhesive backing, such as gasket, seals etc., at a very high rate. The cutting depth of the tool can be set extremely accurately, which means the tool can cut through the foam or rubber, but not through the self-adhesive backing paper. The end result is a roll of cut parts, which can be quickly and easily removed by your production operator, an ideal method of supply for our high volume, automated customers.

Roll Slitting

This machine allows us to manufacture plain or self-adhesive backed rolls, from any type of foam, rubber and PVC. We can produce rolls up to 100 mtrs long by 1 mtr wide. All we need to know is what material you require, the size and quantity, then you can leave the rest to us!

Lathes

Our various lathes give us the capability to manufacture all sizes of foam rollers, e.g. paint rollers, ink rollers etc. We can also drill holes into larger blocks of foam, such as fish filters. Finally, this equipment can also produce traditional microphone windshields, in a wide range of colours.

Buffing

Polishing pads used by automotive manufacturers for the final polishing of recently sprayed vehicles are a well established part of our business. We have an extensive knowledge of the different types of suitable foam materials. Many of the polishing pads have clean radiused edges, and we have an extensive range of tooling to produce these sizes.

Thermoforming

This machine is a rapidly growing part of our business. We can thermoform polyethylene foam to almost any shape. These foams can have any fabrics of your choice bonded to both top and bottom surfaces, which help give the finished product an attractive finished appearance. The main markets we currently supply are protective headgear, rib protectors for go-karting enthusiast, and under-bonnet acoustic mats.

Egg-box Profile Cutting

This machine gives a wonderfully varied surface to sheets of polyurethane foam, often known as the “egg-box” look. There is a wide range of markets for egg-box foam, such as packaging, acoustic insulation and air/water filtration. In essence, the egg-box effect increases the surface area of the foam, so for acoustic and filtration applications this is a finish being specified by a major number of our customers, as it increases the level of acoustic absorption and thermal absorption efficiency levels.

CNC Cutting

This machine gives us the ability to cut 3D shapes and parts from blocks of polyurethane foam. By CNC programming the dimensions of your part into the machine, we can then guarantee that by interlocking the parts during cutting we obtain the best possible utilisation of raw materials, ensuring you get the best price for the part. Any shaped polyurethane foam part can be produced in this method, we have yet to find a shape we cannot make.

PVC Coating

By spraying a Black PVC coating onto the top surface of an open cell foam, we can ensure that our acoustic foams are not only excellent at absorbing sound, but are also resistant to oils, moisture. This is a low cost process chosen by many of our customers for acoustic insulation parts.

Routing

This is the most efficient way to cut apertures within closed cell foams, such as plastazote and ethafoam. Our multi-head routing machine allows us to accurately manufacture high density foam inserts for many different customers, ranging from the Ministry of Defence, to Samsonite Cases. Tell us want you want the foam insert to contain and the overall size of the insert, and then leave the rest to us.