Rubber glossary
The words you meet when choosing and ordering rubber parts.
- Compression set
- How much of its thickness a rubber part fails to recover after being squeezed for a long time. Low compression set means a gasket keeps sealing.
- CR (neoprene)
- Polychloroprene rubber: a versatile all-rounder with fair oil resistance, good weathering and flame-retardant grades.
- DXF
- A common CAD file format for 2D drawings. Our calculator reads DXF files to measure outlines and holes and price the part.
- EPDM
- Ethylene-propylene-diene rubber: excellent against weather, ozone, UV, water and steam; not for oils and fuels.
- FKM
- Fluoroelastomer: resists aggressive chemicals, fuels and high temperatures (around 200 °C); the premium choice.
- Fabric reinforcement
- Textile plies inside the sheet that limit stretching and tearing; used for gaskets under pressure and for wear parts.
- Food grade
- Compounds formulated and certified for contact with food, e.g. to FDA rules or EU regulation EC 1935/2004.
- Nesting
- Arranging parts on the sheet to use as little material as possible.
- NBR (nitrile)
- Acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber: the standard choice for mineral oils, greases and fuels.
- NR (natural rubber)
- Rubber from latex: very elastic, excellent resistance to abrasion and tearing; not for oils or long outdoor exposure.
- Oscillating blade
- A CNC cutting tool that moves up and down very fast while the head follows the outline, giving a clean straight (90°) edge without heat.
- SBR
- Styrene-butadiene rubber: the economical general-purpose rubber, good abrasion resistance, for dry, indoor use.
- Shore A
- The hardness scale for rubber, from 0 (very soft) to 100 (very hard). See the Shore hardness guide.
- Tolerance
- The allowed difference between the drawing and the cut part. Unless agreed otherwise, ours are ±0.5 mm for CNC-cut parts and ±2 mm for strips; thickness follows the tolerance of the sheet.