Mona-flexible: Monarch Vulcanising Systems

An effect of the cost pressures of rising retail prices and the refocusing of companies onto issues relating to the environmental impact of their operations is that organisations are increasingly looking to mend, rather than replace, damaged tyres. Guernsey-based manufacturer of tyre repair machinery, Monarch Vulcanising Systems, is able to provide a number of machines for just this purpose. Not only, Monarch claims, are their Monaflex systems suitable for fixing any tyre used in the world today, they are also easily transportable, relatively simple to use, and quickly assembled.

Central to Monarch’s business is the signature range of Monaflex rubber vulcanising equipment, for the repair of all tyres, rubber crawler tracks and rubber conveyor belts. When the company was founded in 1961 its main business was the installation of heavy mechanical equipment for the cement and steel industry, which included the installation of rubber linings in raw mills. Utilising its extensive experience with industrial rubber, the company became involved in the supply and installation of industrial rubber flooring and later, in the early 1970s, the company became involved in the development of the Monaflex Vulcanising System for tyre repair. In using rubber Heat Pads and Air Bags Monarch could provide a lightweight portable system that was easily
transported in a small truck for on-site repairs at mines, quarries and construction sites.

Economically speaking, this provision of a system for on-site tyre repairs saved the substantial costs involved in transporting large tyres to the nearest repair shop, which could be hundreds of miles away. In introducing the Monaflex system, Monarch enabled the setting up of mobile repair units by enterprises that purchased the Monaflex systems. The company now exports 80 per cent of its products to tyre repair shops and retreaders around the world. Monarch claims that it is able to offer the benefit of high-quality, “personal pre-sales and after-sales service, with every query answered within 24-48 hours, depending on international time differences.”

Product Expansion

Since the 1970s, the Monaflex range of Vulcanising systems has been extended to handle the vulcanisation of all repairs to Car, Truck and OTR/Earthmover tyres. Monarch even claims that the Monaflex system is versatile enough to handle the vulcanisation of any rubber application. In addition to the versatility of the machinery, Monarch boasts durability as a key feature of their systems, pointing out their use in “hundreds of workshops in more than thirty countries around the world.”

The range of products now available in the Monarch range includes: a Bead Repair System, for fixing beads in radial truck tyres; the External Curing Pack; the Passenger and Light Truck Machine, which utilises two differently-shaped top plates, combining
with different sized mandrels to cover the various profiles of these tyres; the OTR Sidewall Machine, which makes use of two interlocking metal plates that secure the heat pads and air bags on the inside and outside of the tyre, providing even pressure and heating; and the Sidewall Repair System, which can be assembled in 30 seconds.

Perhaps the epitome of Monarch’s product range is the OTR tyre repair system, which they say is Monaflex’s flagship system. The OTR represents an attempt to provide its user with the freedom to cover as few or as many tyre sizes as is needed at a very economical price. A small system can be purchased in the first instance and extended when required by purchasing additional larger (or indeed smaller) heatpads and airbags allowing the potential coverage of all tyre sizes from 1300 to 55.5/85-63. In using strapping to hold the airbags and heatpads into the tyre, the whole system can conform to any profile to provide a distortion-free repair. The flexible nature of the design also allows the machine to be transported easily. The system, which potentially can be used to repair the largest tyres in the world today, can be made to fit inside an ordinary car boot. Therefore, repair crews can easily move
the Monaflex equipment around using anything from a car to a small plane.

The flexibility of Monaflex Systems is rounded off by Monarch’s ability to make custom-built machinery. The organisation is confident that – given their history and expertise in vulcanisation – they can come up with “an affordable solution to cover a whole range of applications.”