Silicon molding services produce molded components made from silicon. Silicone rubber is a two-component, synthetic, flexible rubber like material made from silicone elastomers that can be cured at room temperature into a solid elastomer used in molding. It is heat resistant, durable and free of allergens or leachable chemicals. Liquid silicone is similar to normal silicone, but has different processing characteristics. It is purchased as a two-part raw material with a grease-like viscosity.
Nowadays injection molding of liquid silicon rubber is becoming increasingly important. One reason for this is the increased performance requirements of the finished articles. In addition, more and more producers of rubber parts are seeing benefits in the high level of automation and productivity.

Various ways of silicon molding:
Molding processes used by providers of silicon molding services include cast molding, compression molding, dip molding, injection molding, reaction injection molding, rotational molding and transfer molding.
Whereas in the cast molding process, liquid material is poured into an open mold, in compression molding a slug of silicone is pressed between 2-heated mold halves. On the other hand dip molding is a process similar to hot dip coating, in which the finished product is the fused plastisol stripped from the dipped mold. However in injection molding liquid silicone is forced into a cooled mold under tremendous pressure. In the Reaction Injection Molding (RIM) process two or more reactive chemicals are mixed at high speed as they are being injected into a mold. In rotational molding hollow molds filled with silicone material are secured to pipe-like spokes that extend from a central hub. In transfer molding, the two mold halves are clamped together and silicone is forced by pressure into the mold.

Why the preferred use of silicon rubber in injection molding
Silastic silicon rubber is a shear material and so its viscosity depends on shear rate. As the shear rate rises the product becomes lower in viscosity. It is this effect that is very favourable for the injection molding process. At the beginning of the injection process the injection speed profile should be programmed in such a way that the volume flow is high enough for the liquid silicon rubber not to begin to vulcanize before the cavity is filled, in order to avoid scorch of the material. Thus liquid silicon rubber is widely used for the process of injection molding due to its following characteristics:
- Solvent less with low and versatile viscosity.
- Easy mixing and pigmentation
- Rapid processing compared to solvent dispersion and usually allows a complete coating to be applied in a single pass
- Prime less adhesion to glass and some other substrates.
- Meter mixed silastic liquid silicon rubber can be dip coated or fed to a crosshead for supported extrusion coating.

To sum up
Silicon rubber molding has come a long way over the past two decades. From its roots in a few specialty applications where premium physical properties counted more than the premium price, this thermo set carved out a small but solid niche in the medical and automotive fields. Now, among a proliferation of new applications, that niche has begun to burst at the seams.

By
Ray Walker
Injection Molding Information

7 Financial Strategies for Transitioning from Salaried to Solo

A 40’s something woman was talking to me the other day about her growing sense of frustration with “working for someone else” and her longing to “do my own thing, drive my own wagon”. But, she said with consternation, “I have family counting on me and a standard of living I don’t want to sacrifice.”

Everyone has to decide for themselves what level of sacrifice and risk they’re willing
to undertake in order to enjoy the satisfactions of working independently. Knowing
some strategies for managing the risk will allow you to make a well-informed
decision.

Of the seven strategies included below, the first two suggest ways to gradually
transition from salaried to solo, instead of diving off the edge. The second two are
ways to stretch the dollar; and the final three are ideas for getting started without
stopping.

1. Continue to draw a (reduced) salary
Leaving your current employment in order to develop your new business may look
like the only option, based on an assumption that you won’t get approval for
reducing your hours. While this may prove to be the case, asking yourself why and
how your company will profit from retaining your skills and experience for a
transitional period can provide the basis for approaching your employer. Be sure to
do your homework first, however, and be able to back up your request with a solid
rationale.
Also consider the issue of timing. You want to weigh informing your employer of
your wish to leave with being prepared to leave if the answer to your request is no.

2. Develop another income stream
If you need to leave your present employment, is there a skill in your toolbag that
you can resuscitate and put to work without a significant expenditure of time or
energy? Is moonlighting or freelance work an option? Virtual e-lancing websites
(such as eWork.com, Guru.com, and e-lance.com) may be worth looking into for
short-term professional services opportunities.
Examples: A community mental health worker transitioning to private practice used
his conflict resolution experience to sell a training package to public schools. A
woman transitioning out of an insurance brokerage created and sold seminars on
long term care financing at local retirement centers.

3. Reduce expenses
Apart from fixed expenses - mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc. -are discretionary
expenses that make up the larger part of budgets. Doing a careful analysis of these
expenses and choosing what you can forego for awhile can often save thousands
per year.
Carefully analyzing hidden expenses - credit card interest rates, bank charges, late
fees, auto debits, phone plans - or “lost money” from low interest rates on savings
may generate several thousand more per year.

4. Borrow
It isn’t necessary to wait to borrow for start-up costs until you have a well-
documented idea to submit for a business loan. Refinancing a home or taking a line
of credit are relatively low-cost ways of generating capital. Depending on your
credit rating, you can also get time-limited low-interest loans from credit card
companies.
If you choose this option, applying for loans or refinancing packages while you’re
still employed is strongly advised. Your rating as a borrower declines quickly once
the regular paychecks stop.

You don’t have to wait!
Get started on your new business idea while you’re still employed. Several of the
all-important first steps (below) can be started while standing in the grocery line or
running on the treadmill. They involve asking yourself some questions and doing
some informal research to get crystal clear about your idea. This can take weeks off
your actual start-up time.

5. Identify your niche.
Think about the services you’re uniquely qualified to provide, as well as the ones
you most enjoy providing. Be specific! Write them down! Then think about what
group of people would get benefit from those services and have the ability to pay
for them. Again, be specific: age, where they congregate, habits and values, how
they define the problem your services are going to solve. If you don’t know, ask.
Find someone who fits your “ideal client” profile (s/he may be on the treadmill next
to yours at the gym) and get permission to ask some questions. People generally
love to be helpful.

6. Create your marketing plan.
Don’t be intimidated by the term “marketing plan”. While what you need from a
marketing plan will get more sophisticated as your business develops, for now it
simply means answering the question, How is my business going to make money?
What is the product or service you’re going to sell? How will you describe it so
people quickly recognize the value? How will you package it? (fee for service? by
the project? on retainer?) How will you price it? (What’s being charged for
comparable services? What “feels right” to you?)

7. Manage fear!
For most people, anything involving money involves some level of fear. It’s
important to acknowledge to yourself and to others that you are taking a risk, and
you’ve decided it’s a risk you want to take. So consider the fear natural, and find
ways to manage it.
Getting support from people who believe in you and in what you’re embarking on is
#1 in fear-management tactics. Don’t assume that you’ll get it from the people
closest to you, or that if you don’t have it you shouldn’t proceed. They’re probably
the ones most impacted by your decision and so may be least ready to offer
support. Their consent - a willingness to go along with your plan - is helpful, but
support may have to come later.
It’s also helpful to set a goal (and a date for completion) that’s key to your new
venture - arrange financing by a particular date, or sign a lease - and announce it to
at least one person. You’ll find that making that commitment, saying it out loud,
and following through will in turn generate more confidence and more forward
momentum.

To all of you who are tired of marching to someone else’s drum and are eager to go
solo, these strategies should help you take prudent but positive steps toward
realizing your goal. Good luck!

Nina Ham is an internationally certified women’s business coach and a licensed
psychotherapist. Her company, Success from the Inside Out, provides programs and
services essential for anyone making the salaried-to-solo transition, including niche
identification, marketing fundamentals, and self management for solo professionals.
Go to her site, http://www.SuccessfromtheInsideOut.com and take her free quiz, Is Going
Solo for You?

1991 was a pivotal year in my life. My professional organizing business was 8 years old.

The sales cycle was getting longer and longer for workshop and consulting work. I had formed these crazy habits called eating and paying the rent and was not eager to break either of them.

That’s when I spotted an offer for a free copy of a booklet called “117 Ideas For Better Business Presentations.” I do business presentations, and the price was right. I sent for it. My first reaction was, “gee, I could knock something like this out about organizing tips.’” Then I threw it in a drawer.

Six months later I was in my office, bored, baffled and beaten down by the slow economy. I had no money. I mean no money!

I remembered that little booklet. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but something hit me, and I knew I had to produce a booklet on organizing tips.

I started dumping all those ideas I ever had about getting organized onto a file on my computer. These were all pearls that came out of my mouth when with clients or doing a speaking engagement or a seminar. I could do a booklet on business organizing tips — a 16-page tips booklet, fitting into a number 10 business envelope. The booklet was ‘110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life.’

My first run was 250 copies. That was the most expensive per-unit run I made, but I needed samples to distribute to start making money. It took a few months to pay the printer only $500.

The only way I could think of selling the booklets was by sending a copy to magazines, asking them to use excerpts and put an invitation at the bottom for readers to send $5 plus a self-addressed stamped envelope. I had no money to advertise. Then the orders started dribbling in, envelopes with $5 checks in them or five one-dollar bills. The day the first one arrived seemed like manna from heaven:$5! The fact it took 6 months from first writing the booklet until the first $5 arrived didn’t matter at that moment.

I cast seeds all over the place, hoping some would sprout. I found directories of publications at the library and started building my list.

Finally, February of 1992 ‘the big one’ hit. A 12-page biweekly newsletter with 1.6 million readers ran nine lines of copy ABOUT my booklet. They didn’t even use excerpts!! That sold 5000 copies of my booklet. I distinctly remember the day I went to my P.O. box and found a little yellow slip in my box. It said, ’see clerk’.

There was a TUB of envelopes that had arrived that day, about 250 envelopes as I recall, each with $5 in them.

Round about June, I stopped to assess what had happened. Was I making any money? By then, I sold about 15,000 copies of the booklet one copy at a time for $5. My financial records showed I tediously generated not a ton of money.

Some lessons along the way were expensive ones. My bank charged $.12 for each item deposited. My first bank statement had a service charge of $191.

Some wonderful things happened selling those 15,000 copies.

* A public seminar company hired me to record an audio program based on the booklet. I can sell that tape to my clients as well and it led to a 20-minute interview on a major airline’s in-flight audio programming during November and December one year.

* A manufacturer’s rep decided to send my booklets to his customers that year instead of an imprinted calendar. 5,000 imprinted copies, including my contact information with theirs.

* A company hired me to write a booklet that was more specific to their product line.

* Paid speaking engagements came from people who bought the booklet.

Things were picking up. One day in June I was bored. I opened one of those advertising card decks that come in the mail. “Here’s a company that ought to see my booklet. And another , and another. ‘ Each got a booklet.

Less than a week later, a woman called, asking the cost of 5000 customized copies for an upcoming trade show, and could I match a certain price.

I slightly underbid her price, she was thrilled and the sale was a done-deal. I thought, ‘oh, this will be easy to sell large quantities now’. Wrong. It was another three-four months until the next large-quantity sale. But, the trade show they were attending was an organization I had contacted about getting my booklet into their catalog. They rejected it because I wasn’t in their industry. So, my buyer had bought 5000 copies of my booklet, with my company information in it, to distribute at that trade show. I loved it!

One day, a guy I know from a major consumer mail- order catalog company said, ‘Why don’t you license us reprint rights to your booklet? We can buy print cheaper than you. Charge us a few cents a unit and we will do production. 18 months later, the sale happened: a non-exclusive agreement for them to print 250,000 copies. We exchanged a five-page contract for a five-digit check.

They provided the booklet free with any purchase in one issue of their catalog and made a 13% increase in sales in that issue. They were happy. I was happy.

In spring 1993, I designed a class on writing and marketing booklets and wrote an 80-page manual. The class was small and mostly people I knew. They paid me money, and I had a chance to test-run the class. I then had another new product: a manual, a blueprint of how I had then sold more than 50,000 copies of my booklet without spending a penny on advertising.

August 1994, I discovered Compuserve. My sole purpose for getting online was to market my business. The third day online, I saw a forum message from a guy from Italy who had a marketing company there. His client base was small businesses and companies who served small businesses. I sent him my booklet. He liked it and we struck a deal. He translated, produced and marketed it, and paid me royalties on all sales. That January he wired several thousand dollars to my checking account from Italy. It was the first sale of 105,000 copies to a magazine that bundled a copy of my booklet with one issue of their publication.

To that point, I sold more than 500,000 copies of my booklet, in three languages, without spending a penny on advertising. One slow week, I posted a message on some Compuserve forums about the story of the Italian booklet as an example of an online success story. Even though blatant selling is not allowed, creating mutually beneficial relationships is. I had received money from someone I had never spoken to and had only communicated with online, by fax, earth mail and EFT. The booklet has been licensed into the Dutch language, 13 years after the booklet was originally written.

I discovered licensing opportunities for my booklet content in other formats. Two different companies who produce laminated guides (one hinged, the other spiral bound) licensed my content.

Tips Products International was created as a business of its own, providing products and services to people wanting to write, produce, and market their own booklet, or have much of it done for them. We write tips booklets for clients based on their raw print materials. Three home study packages have been developed:

• How To Write and Market Booklets for Ca$h

• How to Promote Your Business With Booklets

• How to Make Huge Profits Licensing Your Booklet.

Resellers around the world distribute my courses and services I’ve been invited to speak nationally and internationally, in person and by Teleclass, about how to write and market booklets, how to promote a business with booklets, how to leverage a single booklet manuscript into an entire product line, and electronic publishing.

I never could have written a business plan for how this unfolded.
Clients are surpassing my own sales results of personally selling almost a million copies, without spending a penny on advertising. We have all learned plenty since the original organizing booklet was written in 1991.

Paulette Ensign has never taken a business course. She taught string instruments in public elementary schools for eleven years, became a Professional Organizing Consultant, and went on to create a business based on the niche of booklets. Visit her web site at http://www.tipsbooklets.com

I remember back in my senior year of high school - my best friend since 5th grade was living in France. He wrote that they didn’t like Americans much. “They think we’re all fat,” he said. With his own skinny frame, of course, he confounded their belief.

But, he added a funny, or perhaps ironic capstone to the issue. “I went to a store, and they were selling statues of these fat people, and, at the base of each one was written, ‘American.’”

Obesity is not only an American problem. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it’s a global problem. They call it globesity. Parodoxically, their understanding of this problem began with their original mission to eliminate hunger and malnutrition. We live in a world where many have nothing to eat, and many eat too much. From 1995 to 2000, the number of obese adults worldwide mushroomed from 200 million to 300 million. That’s a 50% increase in just 5 years!
What is Obesity, and What is Overweight?

Overweight means an excess of body weight. This excess weight may be muscle, bone, fat, and/or body water. Obesity refers specifically to an abnormally high proportion of body fat. You can be overweight without being obese - for example, a bodybuilder or other highly-muscled athlete. But many people who are overweight are also obese.The main way to determine whether you are overweight or obese is with the body mass index (BMI). It doesn’t directly measure body fat, and it’s not gender specific, but it does give you a pretty reliable estimation.

To find your BMI, divide your weight (in kilograms) by your height in meters squared. Yep, for the math-challenged, that’s complex, so I’ll give you a website that will figure it out for you, the National Institute’s of Health BMI calculator (http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/). This will very quickly tell you if you are normal, overweight, or obese, and it does all the calculating and metric conversions for you!

Overweight is defined as a BMI above 25 (including those above 30 BMI, too), and obese is a BMI above 30. So, all obese people are overweight, but not all overweight people are obese.

The Obesity Epidemic

Obesity isn’t just about not feeling good or having trouble getting dates…

* It leads to more than 300,000 premature deaths each year in the United States. 90,000 are preventable cancer deaths. (CDC)

* Severely obese men die 13 years sooner than men of normal weight (JAMA).

* As a killer in America, obesity is second only to tobacco. (CDC)

The Weight Loss Industry

* Spending: Americans spend between $40-50 billion per year to lose weight.

* Results: I haven’t seen any recent news that Americans are getting any thinner - have you?

* Conclusion: What people are doing isn’t working. If we want different results, we have to try a different solution.

Acupuncture Weight Loss: Fantasy, or Fact?

* Fantasy or Fact? As a well-trained and fairly conservative Chinese medicine practitioner, I had assumed that acupuncture for weight loss was a marketing fad and a patient fantasy.

* Evidence: But while researching my upcoming book Chinese Medicine: A Practical Guide to Optimal Healing, I found some surprisingly positive information that changed my mind.

Chinese Medicine’s Collective Clinical Data on Acupuncture Weight Loss

Chinese Medicine has thousands of years of clinical experience. This collective data not as convincing as randomized controlled trials are, but it does contain truth - it’s imperfect but still valid and important.

A U.S. government study in the 80’s concluded that 85% of western medicine is based on clinical experience, not on research. (Office of Technology Assessment of the Congress of the United States, The Impact of Randomized Controlled Trials on Health Policy and Medical Practice, Background Paper OTA-BP-H-22. Also see Michael Millenson’s book, Demanding Medical Excellence)

There is good Chinese Medicine research in Taiwan, Australia, and Europe that gets ignored by American scientists and media. Much research in Chinese has not even been translated into English.
Seven Studies of Acupuncture for Weight Loss

How it works: By enhancing the function of two neuroendocrine pathways that regulate many bodily processes, including metabolism.

What it does:

* Lowers body weight, body fat, insulin levels, and lipid levels in the blood

* Decreases excessive appetite and makes it easier to satisfy your hunger with less food.

* Decreases menopausal weight gain

* In one study, acupuncture took off 10 pounds in 2 months - that translates to 60 lbs in a year!

* Combined with diet control, and aerobic counseling it not only takes off the pounds and body fat, but keeps them off, especially if you’re diligent with their exercise.

(See references at end of article for the research)
Ephedra misuse and mislegislation

Ephedra is a Chinese herb for colds and coughs. It has been misused to increase metabolism, and this misuse has caused numerous deaths. As a result, the FDA is considering a total ban on ephedra products. We can blame two major things:

1. Supplement companies that care more about your money than your health (no, not all of them are that way, but some of them are, especially the ones that market weight loss formulations).

2. The idea that you can medicate yourself safely with herbs - self-medication of any kind is risky. Self-medication with herbs is off the radar, and people generally think they can do it safely. The ephedra debacle is an example of how dangerous it can be.

Traditionally, Chinese herbs are given in formulas (not singly), which is safer and more personalized. They’re prescribed by a Chinese medicine practitioner who diagnoses your specific imbalances first. Ephedra would never be given for weight loss, but only for certain kinds of colds and coughs, and only to people whose body’s can handle it.

No traditional Chinese herbs should be outlawed without allowing Chinese medical practitioners to continue to use them traditionally.
Food Cravings

* Problem #1 (Enzyme Deficiency): The foods you crave depending on your personal imbalances. Modern digestive science explains that when your body can’t digest a food, you crave more of it - you’re not getting what you need from it. This lead to a cycle of craving and overeating the exact food you can’t digest.

* Problem #2 (Low Blood Sugar): Another vicious cycle happens when you can’t digest complex carbs, so your blood sugar is low, so you eat simple carbs that raise your blood sugar which raises insulin, which lowers your blood sugar again, and your stuck eating donuts and feeling horrible.

* Solution: Enzymes (I recommend various enzyme formulations from a company called Transformations) and Chinese herbal formulas can help you digest your food and break both of these cycles

Weight can be lost safely if done slowly and naturally.

You can lose up to 2 lbs per week without gaining it back. That means you could lose 104 lbs this year and keep it off!

Positive change is like stretching a rubber band- if you stretch too far too fast, it breaks or snaps back on you.

So avoid the temptation to take an easy solution like ephedra or citrus aurantium (both misused Chinese herbs), because you’ll gain the weight back, and you’re risking heart problems and stroke.
5 Things to Do Right Now
To Lose 10 Pounds Within 2 Months
And Keep Them Off:

1. Avoid heavily marketed supplements - instead, see a professional trained herbalist (acupuncturist) - it’s safer and more effective - my preference would be a Chinese medicine practitioner, but some very well-educated western herbalists are good too.

2. Acupuncture Weight Loss: See an acupuncturist/chinese herbalist - Get acupuncture (once to three times per week) to SAFELY regulate your metabolism and hunger-satisfaction. Your acupuncturist can also get you the herbs that will balance your digestion and cravings - and based on your Chinese pattern diagnosis, they can also give you personalized diet advice. Herbs and enzymes (specific formulations from the enzyme company, Transformations) can eliminate your food cravings.

3. Develop a plan and goals with your acupuncturist and aerobics instructor- make it realistic, and stick to it. If you mess up, don’t beat yourself up, just get back on track as soon as you can. Any progress is better than none at all.

4. Eat less, exercise more - Eat a low fat diet, and don’t miss breakfast! Weigh yourself regularly, and exercise an hour a day. Start by walking a few minutes each day, or take the stairs at work. Don’t overdo it! Remember the rubber band. In fact, you may want to wear a rubber band on your wrist to remind yourself to make changes slowly. Get some aerobic exercise help- a public class, or private aerobic counseling.

5. Join a support group like Weight Watchers or Overeaters Anonymous. There’s nothing like positive friends to encourage you and keep you on track. OA members say that this spiritual program of action has changed the way they relate to food.

References and Resources

1. Office of Technology Assessment of the Congress of the United States, The Impact of Randomized Controlled Trials on Health Policy and Medical Practice, Background Paper OTA-BP-H-22.

2. Michael Millenson’s book, Demanding Medical Excellence

3. Effect of acupuncture on weight loss evaluated by adrenal function. Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 1993 Sep, 13(3):169-73.

4. Wozniak, P., Oszukowski, P., Stachowiak, G., and Szyllo, K. [The effectiveness of low-calorie diet or diet with acupuncture treatment in obese peri- and postmenopausal women] (in Polish). Ginekol.Pol. Vol.74 Issue 2 pp. 102-107. 2003

5. Acupuncture on Spleen, Stomach, and Ren Mai Channel Points for the Treatment of Stomach & Intestinal Replete Heat Pattern Simple Obesity. Abstracted & translated by Bob Flaws, Dipl. Ac. & C.H, Lic. Ac., FNAAOM, FRCHM

6. Richards D, Marley J. Stimulation of auricular acupuncture points in weight loss. Aust Fam Physician. 1998 Jul;27 Suppl 2:S73-7.

7. Zhao, M., Liu, Z., and Su, J. The time-effect relationship of central action in acupuncture treatment for weight reduction. J Tradit Chin Med Vol.20 Issue 1 pp. 26-29. 2000

8. Liu, Z. Mechanisms underlying the effects of acupuncture moxibustion on simple obesity complicated by hypertension. Inter J Clin Acup 371-378, 1995.

9. Studies of the Weight Loss Industry

10. Obesity prevalence and effect

11. Overeaters Anonymous

Brian Carter has been making herbs and acupuncture fun and easy to understand since 1999. He founded Pulse Media International (http://www.pulsemed.org), previously known as the Pulse of Oriental Medicine. He is the author of “Powerful Body, Peaceful Mind: How to Heal Yourself with Foods, Herbs, and Acupressure” (2004 - http://www.pulsemed.org/famous-author.htm)

Brian is a medical professor and public speaker. He writes articles, blogs (http://americas-acupuncturist.blogspot.com/), and speaks on radio across the country, and has been quoted and interviewed by publications like Real Simple, Glamour, and ESPN magazines.

If you want to be cost effective with your trade show exhibitions or if you are preparing for your first trade show, you should choose cheap trade show displays for the best deal. Trade shows are effective sales devices for growing business, and most new enterprises are not financially strong enough to spend a large amount on an elaborate trade show display, so opting for a cheap display is a good idea. Don’t try to produce a do-it-yourself display, instead, look for experts who can produce cost effective trade show displays that fit your budget.

There are many ways to get cheap trade show displays. First, always consider a rollup or banner display, as they are light, inexpensive, and easy to transport. Banners with graphic headlines can easily attract attention. You can use them anywhere and greatly minimize the cost of your booth. Secondly, if you want to use small space, a tabletop display unit would be the perfect because it is small, light, professional looking, and less expensive than a full booth. Thirdly, if buying would be a problem for you, then you should consider getting a rental display for the tradeshow. You can modify a used display and convert it to fit your needs. You can also form a partnership with someone who is participating in the show in order to share expenses.

The growing trend of tradeshows has given birth to many companies specializing in cheap trade show displays. It is hard for new businesses to spend lots of money on tradeshows, but the company must participate in the shows in order to expand. The best option for these companies is to choose a cheap tradeshow display.

Trade Show Displays provides detailed information about trade show displays, custom trade show displays, portable trade show displays, and more. Trade Show Displays is affiliated with Mannequins.