2 minute read
Maintaining roads
SCRAP RUBBER/SPRAY SEALS HIGH PERFORMANCE
WITH MORE THAN 35 YEARS OF BLENDING OLD TYRES WITH BITUMEN, CRACK-SEALING SPECIALIST, ROAD MAINTENANCE, HAS FOUND THE RIGHT MIX.
Road Maintenance has been blending old tyres with bitumen for more than 35 years. This mixture helps create a product that is ideal for sealing bitumen on roads.
When the company first started mixing the two products, it was under an agreement to blend for Mobil/Emolem using given formulas that had a lot of segregation in transport, which wasn’t an ideal situation.
After the sale of Emolem, the owner of Road Maintenance, Max Fitzgerald, knew that he could make a product that was better than was currently available, so he set about doing just that.
“I was able to work on improving the blends and minimising segregation and a smother mix for ease of spraying,” says Mr. Fitzgerald.
“We have developed a blend that helps to bond to stone and also has an odour suppressant for built-up areas.
“For rubber blends, I found that to get best results, the blend had to be mixed for a minimum of four hours at the correct temperatures.
“I also found that with 5 part it was harder to stop segregation than 18 part. When tyres are manufactured, a lot of different ingredients go into them.
“Some of these ingredients are harder to blend, but with the right approach, they are able to blend into the mix.”
What Mr. Fitzgerald found was that, after some experimentation, he was able to make the blend smoother than previous iterations.
It was also smoother than some of the other brands that are available in the marketplace.
More importantly, when he was developing the blends, Mr. Fitzgerald was not only thinking of the end result,
but of those whose job it is to apply the product to the asphalt – something that some other companies do not take into consideration.
“The main problem is that a lot of spray crews have not handled rubber blend before, and add cutters to get the viscosity,” says Mr. Fitzgerald. “Rubber blend needs a higher temperature to get right viscosity. Heating and blend requires hot oil heating.
“Unfortunately tube/box/electric heating destroys the quality of the blends. This is the method some producers use. We don’t, which is why our product works well for the end user.”
A example of poor rubber blend.
An example of a smooth rubber blend.
