Rectangular Welded Tufflex Tufflex polyurethane screens come in fully welded, partially welded and rectangular welded variations. The brightly coloured material is lightweight and smooth, which makes it much easier to handle when delivering, storing, installing or removing. Screening innovation in the past has been limited to tweaks and modifications, slightly different apertures or better hooking. The introduction of Tufflex screens a few years ago was akin to the introduction of smartphones versus traditional mobile phones. We never really knew we needed a phone with a camera, a GPS and in-built games, but now its hard to imagine life without one. Just as smartphones cover off the traditional functionality of making phone calls, Tufflex is used for screening product in the quarry market. It offers improved screening efficiency, substantially increased wear life, increased production uptime and occupational health and safety (OHS) benefits due to its light weight and flexibility. While there are a set range of apertures (1.5mm to 45mm square) to choose from, the Tufflex process has great flexibility in manufacturing unique aperture combinations to rope diameters and aperture slot lengths. For example, in some quarry plants in Japan, a 14 aperture screen is used as the bottom deck for their No. 5 spec (20mm to 13mm) or the top deck for the No. 6 spec. The Tufflex specification is an 8mm rope on top and a 6mm rope from hook to hook, a combination not available in traditional woven wire. Long-slotted apertures, ie 8 x 340mm, are used in some side-tensioned equipment where flexibility of the screening surface is needed. This type of aperture, while possible to weave in wire, would not have the mechanical stability for a vibrating application, whereas Tufflex screens were developed with this in mind. These larger configurations can also be used as an alternative to harp/piano screens.