Custom rubber part and gasket quotes, read from the print up to the point a person prices them.

A rubber part rarely arrives fully described. One buyer sends a print with a compound callout and a tolerance note, another emails a sketch and asks for the same as last time, and a third describes a worn seal and what it sat against. Before anyone can price it, your estimator works out what the part is made of, how hard it is, what size it has to hold, which mold or die it needs and how many are wanted in a year.

In the proof of concept, AI reads copies of RFQs you already answered and fills in your quote sheet, naming where each value was read. A missing compound, a durometer with no scale, a tolerance note with no class, or an annual quantity nobody stated becomes a line on the question list. Prices stay off the draft; your estimator sets them.

Molded or cut decides the first question. A flat gasket usually goes to a press or a cutting table and a three-dimensional seal to a mold, and the paperwork differs from there. For cut work, a 2021 trade article on gasket cutting describes a clicker press driving a rolled steel die through the sheet, economical at larger quantities but needing a die for each size and regular die upkeep, against a CNC cutter running an oscillating or drag knife from a CAD file, nesting parts on the sheet with no die at all. The annual quantity is what points to one or the other. The draft records the quantity, the material and its thickness, and any die number the customer named, and it does not pick the method.

Molding has its own tooling questions. Compression, transfer and injection tools differ in how the rubber reaches the cavity, what they cost and how much flash is left to trim, and a print may name one or leave it to you. A part bonded to a metal insert adds a bonding step and perhaps an adhesion test under ASTM D429, Rubber Property, Adhesion to Rigid Substrates. The draft notes whether the RFQ says a mold exists, who owns it and how many cavities it has, and turns everything else into a question.

The tolerance note is a code. Molded prints commonly carry an ARPM designation, A1 high precision, A2 precision, A3 commercial or A4 basic, often still written RMA, with finish and flash extension marks beside it. Fixed dimensions, cut into one mold plate, and closure dimensions, which span the plates and move with flash thickness, take different tolerances. An ISO print may cite ISO 3302-1:2014 and its M classes instead, a standard for molded, extruded and calendered solid rubber that does not reach precision toroidal sealing rings. The draft carries the class as written, and a bare per-RMA note with no class goes on the question list.

The compound line decides whether a tool fits. Rubber shrinks in the mold by an amount that depends on the compound, so a cavity is cut for the compound it will run. Custom molders' published notes put silicone and FKM generally above nitrile and EPDM, and softer stocks above harder ones, and warn that a compound or durometer change on an existing cavity can push a part out of tolerance. Polymer names come from ASTM D1418, Rubber and Rubber Latices, Nomenclature, and hardness needs a scale, usually Shore A under ASTM D2240, Rubber Property, Durometer Hardness. So the draft records polymer, durometer and any or-equivalent note, and flags a change from what your records show that part last ran in.

Your reviewer. The owner names the person who knows your quoting best, usually the lead estimator, and that person holds each draft against the sheet that was built: compound, durometer, tolerance class, tooling, quantity, and every question your team actually had to ask. Include a sample-only RFQ, a bonded part, a cut gasket and one you passed on.

With your reviewer's approval, new prints and RFQ emails get the same draft sheet and question list for about 30 days.

Your estimator prices, changes or declines every one, and a person approves each sheet before it goes anywhere. How approved sheets reach your quoting system gets settled for the live month, and not before.