Wear parts do most of the heavy lifting in the mechanized world and often take the blame when things go wrong. When these components fail, operations come to a halt until they are repaired or replaced, making them critical to any mechanically driven enterprise. From rollercoaster wheels to corn picker “fingers,” wear parts often define a product’s reliability and durability.
How Underperforming Wear Parts Hurt Your Brand
Problems arise when wear parts are under-engineered for their intended use. To cut costs, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) may specify lower-grade rubber, plastic, or aluminum for wear parts—materials that often fail to withstand demanding conditions. Additionally, users may over-adjust adjustable parts, causing them to wear out prematurely. These early failures reflect poorly on the OEM’s brand and erode value as customers switch to more reliable products.
Over 30 Years of Custom Polyurethane Wear Parts Excellence
Novathane understands the complexities of the wear parts industry and has supplied OEMs, distributors, equipment owners, and end-users with solutions that meet or exceed expectations. For over 30 years, we have tackled the toughest jobs in the wear parts sector—the ones others turn down. In many cases, we provide superior solutions by replacing original rubber or plastic components with custom polyurethane parts.
Rubber, for example, offers a limited range of hardness and can be sensitive to fluorescent light and moisture. Some rubber compounds are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In contrast, custom polyurethane provides a broader range of hardness options, is resistant to light and moisture, and can be formulated to meet FDA requirements.
Extending the Life of Legacy Equipment
We specialize in producing high-performance, custom polyurethane wear parts for legacy equipment. For instance, we helped a farmer who needed replacement “fingers” for his corn-picking equipment. The original rubber husking fingers, which separate husks from ears of corn, wore out quickly and were expensive to replace. After reverse-engineering the original parts, we developed custom polyurethane fingers that cost less than half of the OEM replacements and offer greater durability. As news spread among farmers, demand for our cost-effective, longer-lasting solution grew rapidly.
Custom Polyurethane Wear Parts Success Stories
One customer struggled with steel rollers that damaged presswood furniture parts during transport, resulting in costly product losses. We solved the issue by replacing the steel rollers with softer, custom polyurethane rollers. Another client increased production tenfold by switching to polyurethane wheels and pads in their adhesive application process. Similarly, a bronze factory faced challenges when spinning bronze hubs. We applied an ultra-thin urethane coating inside the hubs, solving a problem that other suppliers had refused to tackle due to its complexity.
Approximately 60% of our work involves custom polyurethane wear parts, setting us apart from suppliers who focus only on high-volume jobs. Our willingness to address unique and challenging projects means that if you need a specialized solution, the odds are in your favor with Novathane.
To learn more about Novathane and our strong focus on polyurethane wear parts, call (419) 887-3306 or contact us.