In more than 5 years that Tru-Core has been in business, mandrel prices havn’t increased in price. The last inventory received there was an price increase of 35%-40% for raw teflon rod.
I have no choice to increase the teflon mandrel and teflon mandrel Tru-Core casting sets.

In the meantime, I have been developing a less expensive alternative to the larger teflon mandrels, 1"-2" diameter.

Ed Romani

Tru-Core

Excerpt from Lanmar website about Teflon raw material:

Come April 1, 2011 a substantial industry-wide pricing increase on all Teflon® products will take place. It will impact everyone who has anything to do with Teflon®; manufacturers,
distributors, converters, fabricators, and end users. It is a “perfect storm” of supply vs. demand and involves the basic raw material ingredients that are used to manufacture PTFE (Teflon®) resin.

The major manufacturers whose quality products we market have told us to expect price increases of between 10% and 20% on Teflon® Tapes, Teflon® Coated Fabrics, and custom Teflon® Belting

products. Items featuring heavier PTFE coatings will be increased the most. Manufacturer’s themselves are facing raw materials increases from 25% to 35%. These increases are unprecedented
and incredible to comprehend. Historically, past increases have been in the 4%-6% range coming at 2-3 year intervals. We are now told that these high prices will last and that there is
no end in sight for the material shortages causing this pricing calamity.

We can lay some blame on the unrest now taking place in many of the Mideast oil producing countries for the increased cost of the energy resources used to manufacture Teflon®.
But the primary issue here is the current availability of a key Teflon ingredient called Fluorspar (aka: fluorite, calcium fluoride, CaF2). Fluorspar is critical in the manufacture and production of
fluoropolymers, pharmceuticals, hydrofluoric acid, refrigerants, steel, aluminum, glass, ceramic materials, enriched uranium, hydrofluoric acid, a variety of fluorochemicals, including
fluorocarbon plastics (Teflon®), solvents, refrigerants, aerosol propellants, and any other product that requires a fluorine-based stock.

China controls 70% of the worldwide fluorspar production capacity and they have restricted exports. The booming Chinese economy is the culprit. For years China freely exported their raw
mined minerals to the USA and other countries. Now, these products have Chinese domestic use priorities. Chinese manufacturers are now producing many of their products for internal
consumption with the leftover balance targeted for high-tariff exportation, which includes raw materials such as fluorspar. Countries, including the USA, are now scrambling to reopen old or
open new mining resources of this critical mineral. The base mineral, fluorite, is found in large deposits in many areas including China, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Norway, Mexico,
and in the Provinces of Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada. Large deposits also occur in Kenya, and in areas within the Great Rift Valley of Africa. USA deposits are found in Missouri,
Oklahoma, Illinois, Kentucky, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Ohio, New Hampshire, New York, Alaska, and Texas. Fluorite has been the state mineral of Illinois since 1965. At that time,
Illinois was the largest producer of fluorite in the United States, but the last fluorite mine in Illinois was closed in 1995. Add this information to a worldwide increase in demand for PTFE resin coming
from a small number of PTFE resin producers, DuPont being primary among those producers in the USA, and we have a pricing situation that is, sadly, unavoidable and seemingly out of control.
The European Union (EU) has declared fluorspar to be on its worldwide shortage list until at least 2030.

Sincerely,

Martin J. Jacobs

President/CEO

LANMAR INC.