DP Seals is a leading global supplier of high precision custom seals, gaskets and mouldings that play a key role in a huge variety of applications, such as Formula 1 racing cars, anaerobic digesters and London Underground ticket machines. Aerospace involvement includes Airbus, Dreamliner, Black Hawk and Typhoon – DP Seals is AS 9100 accredited and BAe Systems approved – while sub-sea involvement includes wet-mate and dry-mate fibre-optic and power connector technologies.

For many years now, the company has provided a direct, high-efficiency link from the client’s engineer’s desktop to the in-house tool room, ensuring prototype tooling in optimum time without compromising precision or quality and eliminating error. To further shorten the prototyping process – and so speed its clients’ development programmes – DP Seals is now offering 3D printing of custom seals and mouldings.

On Stand G42 at Southern Manufacturing & Electronics Show 2013, the company will be discussing this exciting new opportunity alongside a display of its many and varied custom seals and mouldings used in aerospace, sub-sea, automotive and other applications.

“Adopting the latest 3D printing technology in our tool design department was the next logical step in speeding the prototyping process for our clients,” says Andrew Piper, DP Seals’ technical director. “It is really fast and, because we use a rubber-like print medium, the client can better visualise the end result and identify potential design faults.”

The key to adopting this innovation is the recent availability of a range of rubber-like materials that exhibit many elastomeric characteristics – diverse Shore A hardness values, elongation at break, tear resistance and tensile strength. This level of flexibility is crucial to the prototyping process, showing fitting such as male to female mating, or cable feed-through, allowing the client to iron out problems and make modifications prior to committing to expensive tooling.

To underpin this new service, DP Seals has partnered with one of the UK’s leading high-resolution 3D printing companies offering this technology.

DP Seals has been making custom rubber mouldings for over 35 years and employs some 45 people at its two Poole sites.

More information is available at www.dpseals.com