What is Durometer?

The durometer is a measurement of the hardness of a piece of rubber. However, there are a few different scales the industry uses to measure the durometer of an object. The most popular way is the Shore A durometer scale. Shore A is the way APG measures its materials to ensure the most accurate hardness rating possible. A 70 Shore A durometer is the most common level of hardness as it is the most practical for many O-Ring applications. 70 durometer is often known as the standard since it is not too hard and it stretches enough for most applications. For example, a 60 durometer is softer than a 70, and a 90 is hard than both of those. If there is a certain durometer you are looking for, please contact APG or go to our website to filter through all our durometers.

Shore A & Shore D

Shore Durometers are broken up into two different units of measurements. Shore A, which measures softer materials such as rubber, and Shore D, which measures harder materials such as hard rubbers and hard plastics. Since Shore A measures softer materials the tool has a flatter tip to determine the softness, while Shore D uses a pointed tip to measure the hardness of harder materials.   

There are in fact other standards of rubber elastomer hardness such as the ASTM standard and IRHD standard. However, the SHORE standard is recognized as the global standard in measuring the hardness of materials.

There are in fact other standards of rubber elastomer hardness such as the ASTM standard and IRHD standard. However, the SHORE standard is recognized as the global standard in measuring the hardness of materials.