Join Matt Tempelis to discover the unique benefits and applications of VHB™ tape and how they are used in our daily lives.
Transcript:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Tale of the Tape. I'm Matt Tempelis, President of Engineered Materials and your Minister of Tape. In the last episode, we talked about VHB acrylic foam tape being used to replace mechanical fasteners, rivets, spot welds, as well as adhesives. Today we're going to talk about why you would use a tape in these applications and where do you see them in everyday use? Well, speed and labor savings are one of the key reasons that you would use an acrylic foam tape over mechanical fasteners and adhesives. You can make bonds very quickly, very easily, without the use of skilled labor, no spot welders required and the tape is clean and fast. You have a set thickness and the set width, and then you get handling strength. About 50% of the strength is is right up front with good pressure on your bonds. So you can move it throughout the facility right away after you've made that bond. Messy adhesives. Of course, you have to wait for setup time and cure times, and that creates bottlenecks in your operation. Another reason that you'd use acrylic foam tape VHB is aesthetic improvement. You don't have unseemly and unsightly fasteners throughout the bond. There are no weld marks that need to be abraded and burnished, and then you don't have an adhesive mess that you have to clean up later and worry about. You have again that set thickness, set width.
And if we're doing it, we can create the exact die-cut part to your application. You also have design flexibility and the ability to use lighter weight materials. First of all, you can put together differential materials without the concern of galvanic corrosion because that tape separates the two materials. Next, you don't have to worry about a certain thickness of your materials in order to pop rivets through, or to screw through or to. To spot weld, you can use lighter weight materials, which then lowers cost of the materials and also creates a lighter weight end product. Lastly, long term durability. You don't have a wear points like mechanical fasteners, spot welds, and rivets create. And along that entire bond line you have the ability to absorb a great degree of dynamic load. While there are limitless number of applications you can imagine with acrylic foam tape, there are some that are very common throughout a variety of industries. For example, bonding panels to framework is very common. Bonding stiffeners to panels is very common. Bonding lenses and displays to housings, as well as decorative name plates and trim attachments. So where on earth can you find applications leveraging VHB? Virtually everywhere. For over 40 years, the signage industry has been bonding panels to frames, stiffeners to panels and decorative attachments within their assembly of signage. If you see a sign likely, it's using and leveraging VHB acrylic foam tapes.
If you go down the road and see a beautiful, smooth sided trailer 98% of the time, that panel to frame assembly is bonded with acrylic foam tapes and VHB. Also, the roofs are attached with VHB. In appliances, if you have a nameplate, you have trim or for sure a oven door panel assembly. Those are often put together with VHB acrylic foam tapes. You're not able to have a thin, beautiful mobile phone without the lens and a variety of different applications being attached with VHB acrylic foam tapes. In window and door, if you have simulated divided light, beautiful mutton bars are attached with VHB acrylic foam tapes to glass, architectural panels. There are buildings that you're amazed by the curvatures and the beauty of the building. Oftentimes those are assembled panel to frame stiffeners, etc. with VHB acrylic foam tapes. And lastly, one of the most ubiquitous industries for the longest period of time has been leveraging acrylic foam tapes. Is the automotive industry, they've been doing nameplate attachments and all the trim assemblies with acrylic foam tapes. We've discussed the benefits and applications of VHB acrylic foam tapes in use in industry. If you have questions about VHB, have an application, or have a need for die-cut parts to fit your exact assembly, we're here to help. We'll see you next time on Tale of The Tape.
