Awesome Rubber

Rubber is a versatile material and relatively easy to recycle. This video posted by Handmade Heroes shows how it’s possible to recycle rubber to make tennis balls. The process involved shredding the tire and mixing it with a binding agent. After that, he rolled the rubber like dough, shaped it into spheres, and covered the balls with flocking.

All Process of the World takes us inside a Kumho tire factory in Vietnam that cranks out thousands of tires each day. They start with large quantities of rubber and other materials and extrude those into long, flat strips. Then machines cut and mold them around a circular form, apply layers, attach an inflatable structure, then heat-emboss tread patterns.

Ever wonder how they make basketballs or other bouncy rubber balls? It’s not as simple as just blowing up a rubber balloon. Science Channel’s How It’s Made visited a ball factory to walk us through the fascinating process, which includes making an inflatable bladder, then wrapping it in nylon thread and a segmented rubber skin.

Everyday car tires are made mostly by machine, but the high-end tires used for racing are made by hand. In this clip from Street FX Motorsport TV, they take us inside Michelin Motorsport’s HQ in France for a look at the tire-making process, building up layer by layer of rubber, textiles, steel, and adhesive on spinning drums.

Belgian artist Wim Delvoye took thick rubber car and truck tires, and carved intricate patterns into their sides and treads, creating stunning works of art from otherwise discarded junk.

Luke Hart’s simple, yet ingenious bookshelf design automatically adapts itself to the height and weight of books placed on its bright red, rubbery shelves which return to their natural shape when empty.

According to Oakley’s Blade II web page, the timepiece contains Unobtanium, the MacGuffin from Avatar in it. All we see is a spiky black stainless steel and rubber watch with looks that could kill.