By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Unless you need custom rubber parts, you might not notice T&C Manufacturing just off the highway two miles east of Great Bend. But the business has been around since 1996 and currently employs eight people. Its rubber bumpers, specifically manufactured for another area business, are now a finalist in the Coolest Things Made in Kansas contest. Rubber Division Manager Clint Pangburn explains why the small 3-inch parts are so unique.
"This part in particular, it's a rubber piece that we actually bond to metal," he said. "The bond is so strong that the rubber will actually break its crosslink before the bond actually breaks from the metal. We make them for KWM and they stick them on their front-end loaders."
T&C uses compression, injection, transfer compression molding, and rubber-to-metal bonding to custom manufacture molder parts for other companies. Irrigation gaskets, seals, and O-rings for oil field companies are just a few examples of those products, which are now made easier with a new injection rubber molding machine the company recently purchased.
"This machine pretty much does everything as far as loading the rubber, weighing out the rubber, injecting exactly the same every time," said Pangburn.
T&C's rubber bumpers are among many people's choice products in round one of the Coolest Things Made in Kansas contest. Voting for round one ends at 11:55 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 9. The 16 products with the most votes will advance to a head-to-head bracket-style competition. CLICK HERE to vote. Great Bend's Primus Sterilizer and Ellinwood's Kansas Earth and Sky Candle Co. are among a shorter Coolest Innovation nominee list.
T&C Manufacturing was established in 1996 by Craig Pangburn and Thomas McGlinn. McGlinn had been an employee of Rice Engineering for more than four decades, and Pangburn had 12 years of experience as a field supervisor when they purchased part of Rice Engineering to create T&C, which is named after Tom and Craig. In 2010, T&C was recognized as the Existing Small Business of the Year by the Kansas Small Business Development Center. Read more about T&C and its products by CLICKING HERE.