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Project record · Outdoor equipment · Compression

An outdoor brand's rubber grip production.

A textured rubber grip fitted to outdoor equipment. UV-stable, weather-resistant, comfortable in cold and wet conditions. Batch supply across a family of tools sharing a common grip design.

Talk about a similar programme More project records
Outdoor equipmentSector
EPDMMaterial family
CompressionRoute chosen
2019Established

The brief

A grip that had to work in British weather across a product family.

Textured rubber grip sleeves on handle cores in production bench scene
Textured rubber grips across a product family

An outdoor equipment brand produces a range of gardening and outdoor maintenance tools. Several products in the range share a common grip design — a textured rubber sleeve that fits over the tool handle for comfort and control.

The grip had to feel comfortable in cold, warm, wet and dry conditions; it had to survive UV exposure over a multi-year product life; it had to be recognisable as part of the brand family through consistent colour and texture.

The brand had been sourcing the grip from a general-purpose rubber moulder who didn't specialise in either UV compounds or in tight colour matching. Batches drifted; UV degradation was visible after two seasons; customer feedback started to reference it.

The problem

The wrong compound and inconsistent colour were killing customer perception.

The original supplier had been using a general-purpose natural rubber compound. Cheap, easy to mould, wrong for outdoor. Natural rubber degrades in UV — visible surface crazing after eighteen months, colour fading, tactile change. For a premium outdoor brand, all three were reputational damage.

The right compound was EPDM. UV-stable, weather-resistant, comfortable across the temperature range the tools would see. Slightly more expensive per unit, dramatically better in field performance.

Colour discipline was the second fix. The brand's signature colour — a specific deep green — was in the brand guidelines but had never been matched against physical silicone chips. Every batch had drifted slightly; over the range, the tools no longer looked like a family.

Deep green EPDM grips compared with off-shade rubber samples on bench

What we changed

We changed compound, matched colour against physical, and locked both.

Two disciplines, applied to a straightforward moulding job. Field performance recovered.

  1. Compound changed to EPDM

    Weather-stable EPDM compound specified. Field performance tests confirmed no visible degradation across simulated outdoor exposure equivalent to two seasons.

  2. Brand colour matched against physical chip

    Deep green matched against a physical chip signed off by the brand's design team. Pigment recipe recorded and locked.

  3. Tool taken over from previous supplier

    Existing tools moved to our facility, inspected, refurbished where needed. Cavity finish adjusted to hold the brand's specified texture consistently.

  4. First article across the product range

    First-off from each tool in the range compared to the golden sample. Colour, texture and dimensional consistency confirmed.

  5. Rolling batch supply established

    Batches produced against the brand's forecast, delivered to their assembly location. Batch record travels with each shipment.

  6. Programme extended to new products

    As the brand added new tools to the range, the grip design was extended with matching colour and texture. Consistent brand family across the whole product line.

Deep green EPDM grips matched against physical colour chips on bench
EPDM grips checked for colour consistency

The commercial shape

Compound cost went up. Warranty and reputation costs went down.

EPDM compound is more expensive per unit than natural rubber. The unit cost increase was modest. The reduction in warranty claims and negative customer reviews more than covered it in the first year.

The colour discipline — matching against physical chips instead of Pantone numbers — was essentially free. It just required doing it once, properly, at the start of the programme.

Three years into the programme, the field is showing what the compound change was for. Grips from the current supply are indistinguishable in feel and appearance from grips supplied twelve or twenty-four months earlier. Customer reviews no longer mention grip degradation.

“The unit cost went up a bit. The customer complaints stopped, and we look like a proper brand again on the shelf.”
— Product manager, outdoor equipment brand

Services used

How this programme was actually delivered.

Compression moulding

Solid silicone or rubber pre-formed, loaded into a heated steel tool, and pressed under cure. Sensible tooling cost, thousands of parts per tool, and…

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Branded part manufacture

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Tooling and part continuity

For parts that will be in production for years — components inside a device family, sealing parts on long-lived equipment, consumer parts on a…

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Next step

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A stack of TCI silicone moulds.
A stack of TCI silicone moulds.
The TCI design and project office.
The TCI design and project office.
The TCI workshop, with moulds on the bench mid-build.
The TCI workshop, with moulds on the bench mid-build.
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