Reusable Silicone Vacuum Bags

Silicone vacuum bags can be used to produce hundreds of production parts from a single unit. This high yield savings product offered by New Era Composites can be effortlessly fabricated into new tooling, or seamlessly introduced to your current tooling regimen. Regardless of mold size, surface, or complexity, silicone bagging will definitely deliver results. The process works by creating a semi-permanent bag replacement where you would use your typical poly film and tacky tape. Eliminating the need for these two consumable items, brings a ‘green’ edge to a very wasteful, not to mention costly, process. When measuring cost in manufacturing, we must use two variables; time and materials.

Why Silicone bagging?

When the time it takes to complete a task goes up, profit inadvertently goes down. Similarly, the more materials used in a task the more profit goes down. By switching to a semi-permanent bag system, you will be combating these costs with ease. Taking a look at the diagram below, you see there are seven steps in vacuum bagging a typical part. Steps 1-6 takes the average technician 25-40 minutes to complete, and sometimes longer if the shop setup is not tailored for the process. Step 7 alone can take an additional 30+ minutes depending on the environment and the care taken while cutting and processing all materials (plus..ever have a bag that just won’t pass?) That’s an average total of an hour to complete the task of bagging a part.

With the silicone bag, you simply apply your release film and/or peel ply, your breather, and then “snap on” your bag. (see diagram below) No tacky tape is required as you bag locks into a channel on the mold surface. This will take you 10-15 minutes. No wasted time on port installation as the port is already a part of your bag as well. Vacuum leaks are a thing of the past as your not handling fragile bag film. The silicone bag is a flexible durable silicone rubber so there aren’t any surface leaks and with the “snap on” channel, there are no more tape leaks.

By using a reusable bag you are cutting down your task time by 80%. Between reduction in cost and materials, this system will easily pay for itself over the course of a dozen or so parts. Leaving you the savings of dozens to hundreds parts more per unit implementation! And with proper handling and storage the bag will last even longer. But if you do happen to damage the bag some how, repairs can be made. NEC offers a silicone bag repair kit and repair services.

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