Patent ID: 7494335

Claim:
An apparatus for producing at least two rubber strips comprising: an extruder for extruding compounded rubber, said extruder comprising a main body having an extrusion opening, and a die attached to the main body, said die comprising an inlet port in communication with the extrusion opening of the main body, at least two outlet ports from which the compounded rubber is extruded into at least two preliminary rubber strips each having a preliminary cross sectional shape, and a rubber passage extending between the inlet port and the outlet ports so as to distribute the compounded rubber supplied from the inlet port to each outlet port; wherein said rubber passage has a first passage part extending between an upstream end and a downstream end thereof without branching, and a second passage part being connected to the downstream end of the first passage part and comprising at least two branch passages, and said each branch passage has an upstream opening and a downstream opening, and a ratio (ΣSb/ΣSa) of a total sum ΣSa of each opening area Sa of the upstream openings to a total sum ΣSb of each opening area Sb of the downstream openings is in a range of from 0.25 to 0.5.