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US 6,311,364 B1Granted
Silicone rubber windshield wiper blade and method of production
AssigneeSpecialty Silicone Products, Inc.
InventorNed J. Reo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A silicone rubber windshield wiper blade 10 having a coefficient of friction of 0.2 formed by embedding a tetrafluoroethylene polymer 43 such as Teflon plastic into a surface region of the blade 10.
Claims30
A windshield wiper, comprising:
- a blade portion that includes heat-cured rubber;
- and
- a coating, attached to said blade portion, said coating having a surface region and an embedded region, wherein said surface region consists essentially of polytetrafluoroethylene, wherein said embedded region is a bonding of the heat-cured rubber and the polytetrafluoroethylene, and wherein the polytetrafluoroethylene in the surface region is not dispersed within a medium made of a material that differs from the polytetrafluoroethylene.
A windshield wiper, comprising:
- a blade portion that includes heat-cured rubber;
- and
- a coating, attached to said blade portion, said coating having a surface region and an embedded region, wherein said surface region consists essentially of polytetrafluoroethylene, wherein said embedded region is a bonding of the heat-cured rubber and the polytetrafluoroethylene, and wherein the windshield wiper has a coefficient of friction of 0.2 and is reusable many times without significant wear or loss of surface quality.
A method of making a windshield wiper, comprising the steps of:
- providing a mold;
- inserting a transferable overcoat into the mold, wherein the transferable overcoat consists essentially of polytetrafluoroethylene, and wherein the polytetrafluoroethylene is not dispersed within a dispersion medium;
- placing a heat-curable rubber mix into the mold;
- and
- heating and pressurizing the rubber mix to a pressure and temperature, respectively, sufficient to heat-cure the rubber mix and to force a portion of the transferable overcoat to become integrally embedded within the rubber mix and bonded to the rubber mix such that a surface region of the transferable overcoat consists essentially of the polytetrafluoroethylene.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.