RDAbbott announces interactive workshop for silicone fabricators

Garden Grove, CA – R.D. Abbott Co., Inc. (RDAbbott) is hosting “Manufacturing with Silicone Rubber,” a comprehensive workshop for fabricators from August 22 to 25, 2022. This four-day course includes two days of classroom-style instruction at the Bounce Innovation Hub in Akron, Ohio, and two days of hands-on learning at RDAbbott’s Service Center in Barberton, Ohio. RDAbbott’s Craig Lustek, Application Engineer, and Rick Ziebell, Vice President of Technology and Technical Fellow are among the instructors, all of whom have extensive silicone knowledge and experience. The interactive part of the workshop will enable participants to apply what they are learning by using industry-leading materials and state-of-the-art equipment at RDAbbott’s 127,126 sq. ft. facility in Barberton, Ohio.
“RDAbbott looks forward to hosting this comprehensive training,” said Jerry McCall, RDAbbott’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “This workshop will review manufacturing with silicone rubber from a fabricator’s point-of-view while leveraging the new research and development laboratories RDAbbott opened last year.”
On August 22 and 23, workshop participants will receive classroom instruction that provides practical information and insights. Course topics include silicone sources, uses, properties, and key processing characteristics; an overview of molding, extrusion, and calendering for silicone fabrication methods; and silicone testing for characterizing cured and uncured properties. Working with liquid silicone rubber (LSR) is an important focus of this four-day workshop, so participants will also learn about designing for critical LSR properties, LSR meter mixing and dispensing, LSR injection molding equipment and processing parameters.
On August 24 and 25, workshop participants will receive hands-on instruction in troubleshooting the injection molding process and testing silicone’s physical properties. Featured materials include Dow performance silicones—as well as modifiers, additives, and colors from NovationSi, RDAbbott’s manufacturing subsidiary. RDAbbott and NovationSi are co-located at the Barberton Service Center, which is equipped for processing, engineering, compounding, formulation development, color matching, and physical properties testing.
As course instructors, RDAbbott’s Ziebell and Lustek are joined by Bob Pelletier, Operations Manager for ELMET North America Inc.; Marcus Hardt, Senior Application Engineer for ARBURG, Inc.; Dana King, Sales Engineer for Kipe Molds, Inc.; and Richard Hanzlik, Application Engineer for Alpha Technologies, which applies rheology science to elastomer testing. All the instructors for “Manufacturing with Silicone Rubber” are experienced trainers with decades of technical silicone knowledge from real-world application experience. By the end of this four-day workshop, participants will have acquired important knowledge they can take home and use to benefit their businesses.

Featured equipment for the course includes injection molding machines from ARBURG and ELMET, dosing systems from ELMET and Graco/Fluid Automation, a cold runner system from Kipe Molds, a hot-runner mold base from M.R. Mold & Engineering, and rubber testing instruments and software from Alpha Technologies.
RDAbbott invites industry professionals who want to learn more about silicones or increase their knowledge of working with these elastomers to register online at RDAbbott.com/news/silicone-workshop-2022.