Adhesion counts
Initially, the situation had indeed looked critical: just a few months before the skiing season 2019/20 would take off, the binding manufacturer realised there was considerable wear and consequently material abrasion on the plastic components of one of his products. "The problem occurred at the contact zone between the rail that is firmly mounted to the ski and the carrier plate that is adjusted to match the length of the boot, where requirements are particularly high", says Bernhard Dreißer, Regional Sales Manager at Klüber Lubrication, outlining the possible consequences as follows: "The abrasion can lead to inaccurate setting or, in worst case, to a fracture of the binding and a skiing accident."
There was urgent need to act. The binding manufacturer found Klüber Lubrication and its high-performance lubricants on the Internet. In fact, both suggested bonded coatings passed tests in the customer's lab: Klübertop TP 46-111 and TP 15-810. Besides the stipulated protection against friction and wear, the products also showed the required adhesive values over a wide temperature range – an important criterion for sustained stability under snow and ice and in line with the manufacturer's safety requirements, providing additional benefit to the skiers as its good adhesion prevents the lubricant from dripping into the car boot or onto the ski suit.
Special expertise wins race against time
To make the project a success, the time factor was essential. Since soon after the project start two lubricants emerged as applicable, the binding manufacturer did not have to embark on design changes to solve his problem. This spared him a lot of time and expenses for new tools that would have been needed to make new components. Furthermore, with its comprehensive know-how in the long-batch application of bonded coatings, Klüber Lubrication also helped in finding a suitable coating company within a short time. This enabled the binding manufacturer to be ready for the skiing season on time.