Rubber, both in its natural form and in the many synthetic compounds that have been created over the years, is used in a number of different industries across the world. Whether in health and medical fields or in motorsport and aerospace, it is a material that is highly versatile and can be moulded into a variety of different shapes and designs, depending on what is needed.
Natural rubber has been around for thousands of years and it is thought that it arrived in Europe during the 16th Century and in London by the mid 1700s, when John Priestley discovered that pencil markings could be removed from paper by using a piece of rubber – and the eraser was developed.
It was Charles Goodyear that brought about the increase in popularity of rubber by discovering vulcanisation which converted the natural rubber into a hard durable substance that could withstand high heats and friction and would not perish easily. It was this process that led to the mass production of tyres that we use on our vehicles. Since then Rubber Mouldings like the ones from https://www.meadex.co.uk/rubber-moulding/ have been used to create numerous different products using rubber as their base material and mass production has been possible due to the creation of synthetic rubber.