Why No Parting Line? Silicone Products Extra Process - Surface Grinding Process

Grinding is an abrasive process that can be used to achieve precise dimensions, tight tolerances, and smooth surfaces for silicone components. These processes use a rotating wheel or plate with abrasive particles to remove material and achieve the desired surface finish. After the product is formed, it is put into the machine and stirred and polished with the grinding fluid and grinding stone. This can effectively remove the parting line and small burrs of the product, making the silicone surface delicate and smooth. The effect of removing the burrs of the parting line is achieved. If the product is processed by processes such as oil injection, it will become more silky and delicate. The grinding process of silicone is just one of the processing steps. Grinding is mainly aimed at the appearance processing of the product to achieve a better effect in terms of the aesthetics of the product. However, this processing method also has certain risks.

Why Use Surface Grinding For Silicone Products?

The grinding process of silicone products is actually the polishing of the product's appearance. Its processing mainly involves placing the product in sand and gravel for all-round sanding to achieve the appearance effect. Different sizes and shapes of silicone products require different sand and gravel. The size of the sand and gravel determines the grinding fineness of the product. At the same time, the grinding time control and rotation speed affect the product's appearance. Therefore, the process is not without difficulty and requires certain technical requirements.

Advantages:

In terms of advantages, the grinding process of silicone products is mainly to grind the surface smoothness of the product to the finest. When there are knife marks or discharge surface marks on the surface of some molds, the overall surface will be made finer after grinding, and the surface smoothness of silicone products will be better. Therefore, our common silicone facial cleansers and silicone products that come into contact with the skin all need to use grinding technology to make the product more comfortable in contact with the skin.

The second is the appearance effect. The main purpose of grinding silicone products is to reduce the surface smoothness and the parting line of the product to the finest. The parting line is a phenomenon that exists in every mold. At present, some products are manually polished, some products have natural parting lines, and some products must be ground. While reducing the surface smoothness, it is also necessary to reduce the parting line. Then grinding is the best choice, because it is 360-degree all-round wear while rotating the grindstone, and naturally it can achieve an all-round rotation method.

Disadvantages:

Grinding is a waste for silicone products, and this can be said for soft products. There is no more mature method except grinding.

The thickness of the product will be reduced. Since the grindstone is a heavier quartz stone, the surface thickness will naturally be worn away after half an hour of wear. Therefore, silicone products with strict size control should be avoided as much as possible. At the same time, uneven thickness will occur. If the product is ground too thin, its life will be directly affected.

Silicone products after grinding are very dependent on surface treatment. If the surface treatment fails to achieve a smooth feel, the product will be very dusty after long-term use. Therefore, silicone products after grinding are very dependent on surface spraying treatment. This requires specific evaluation. If the cost requirements are within the control range, or if no adhesive layer can be sprayed on the surface, then you must pay attention to this issue, especially for medical silicone parts.

The grinding cost of silicone products is slightly higher. The main factors are as follows:

Silicone products have high grinding loss. Silicone products are soft and are mixed with stones in a pot for a long time. There will naturally be problems. Therefore, generally speaking, the loss ratio of silicone products after grinding is about 20%. There will be about two or three products out of ten that cannot be made. This greatly consumes the defective cost of the product. However, grinding processing can basically not control its defective products, but can only appropriately reduce the probability of product defects.

On the other hand, there is the labor and time cost of the product. For some larger silicone products, due to the small size of the silicone grinder, it takes a long time to grind the product. After mixing the grinding stone, basically not too much product can be put in. The grinding time is more than half an hour at a time, so this increases its labor cost.

What Are The Grinding Methods For Silicone Products?

Tubular silicone protective cover needs to be ground with a positioning jig and sandpaper. If it is a flat surface or a bead, just grind it with a stone. The grinding fee varies greatly.

Immersion method/Grinding with Stone: Soak the silicone product in the grinding liquid and use abrasive particles to polish the surface. The advantage of this method is that it is simple to operate and suitable for grinding large flat surfaces, but the disadvantage is that the grinding efficiency is low and a large amount of grinding liquid is required.

Smearing method: Use abrasive liquid to apply to the surface of the silicone product, and use abrasive particles for friction grinding. This method is suitable for grinding small areas and concave and convex surfaces, and has a high grinding efficiency. However, the smearing method requires high skills from the operator, and uneven smearing may affect the grinding effect.

Wiping method: Wipe the surface of the silicone product with abrasive cloth or sandpaper to remove surface defects through friction. This method is suitable for grinding of various shapes and areas, and is simple to operate. However, the wiping method requires high force control and technique from the operator, and excessive force will cause surface damage.