Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd.

Mitsuhiro Takahara

Masanori Aritake

Kenji Kobayashi

Hidetaka Fukamachi

Kurato Okajima

A weather strip is mounted on a circumferential portion of a door opening for a vehicle door. The weather strip includes a trim portion having a substantially U-shaped cross section and a hollow seal portion, and a designed lip is formed on the trim portion so as to extend therefrom. An adhesive layer and a flocked portion are formed on a designed surface of the weather strip such as an external surface of the designed lip, the flocked portion being provided with a multiplicity of pile fibers which are bonded to the adhesive layer at one end thereof, which pile fibers are each angled randomly with respect to a normal direction to the external surface of the lip portion.

Weather strip and manufacturing method thereof

A method for producing a rubber based weather strip characterized as containing a metal core and as having a decorating treatment and/or a lubricating treatment applied to a surface of the rubber base which is made of EPDM. The decorating and/or lubricating treatment is effected by adhesively bonding a decorative and/or lubricating member to the surface of the rubber base. The method avoids the need for the conventional buffing step. This results in higher productivity for the production line which lowers costs and improves the work environment due to the absence of buffing dust. This method includes the steps of applying a corona discharge treatment to the surface of the rubber base of EPDM which has previously been subjected to a vulcanizing treatment, with the metal core being grounded, so that polar functional groups are formed in a molecular chain of the EPDM. The decorating treatment and/or the lubricating treatment is then applied to the surface of the rubber base in which the polar functional groups have been formed.

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Aichi-ken, Japan

Mitsuhiro Takahara