The Importance of Working with the Right Adhesive Tape Converter
Working with a pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) converter offers numerous advantages that can elevate the performance and efficiency of your products. Adhesive tape converting is a complex process, from choosing the right materials to part design and fabrication. It takes a thorough understanding of the challenges being addressed and the application’s requirements to choose the best solutions. That’s why it pays to work with a knowledgeable PSA converter.
Here's why collaborating with a PSA converter like our team at Engineered Materials can be the best decision when it comes to sourcing your parts.
Materials Expertise
Your pressure sensitive adhesive tape products should be reliable, high performing, and efficient when used in your assembly process. These traits are heavily reliant on the material you choose for your products. From rubber to acrylic and other specialty materials, you have many options when it comes to PSA tapes. Which ones can be used in your application? Which ones are the best choice? Which ones fit your budget? These are just a few of the questions that need to be asked.
While there are a broad range of PSA tapes that provide different levels of quick stick, adhesive strength, adhesion to difficult substrates, environmental resistance, etc., not all of them can bond to every type of surface, nor are they capable of operating in every type of environment. Our team has in-depth knowledge of various tape materials, adhesives, coatings, and more, and we can help you choose the best foam, rubber, insulation material, and PSA for your application and budget. We have access to a wide range of materials and will help you choose materials that bond well to one another as well as the secondary substrate. We can then combine these materials into a short run custom tape that works for your application.
Many applications require PSA tapes to be laminated to other flexible substrates like foam, rubber, or nonwovens to create an entirely new custom tape. Whether the need is a metal shielding tape on insulation or laminating PSA tapes in gasketing foam rubber, solid rubber, and more, it is critical to work with experts who understand how to ensure the right materials match the application requirements.
Customized Parts
Getting the right PSA tape material is important, but few things will increase the speed at which you can apply that tape during assembly than custom-made parts. We have a wide range of fabrication and converting capabilities that allow us to create fully custom parts that are made specifically for your products. This eliminates your need to cut and apply multiple pieces of tape during assembly. Custom die cut PSA tape parts can fabricated kiss cut on a roll or sheet, making part removal and application fast.
We also specialize in:
Laminating: combining a wide variety of materials with PSAs, from films and foils to foams, rubber, insulation and other substrates.
Slitting: cutting larger rolls down to specified widths.
Spooling: we can take your slit to width tape and provide it level-wound on a spool of several thousand feet, so you can avoid costly roll change outs.
Problem Solving Capabilities
We are in the business of solving challenging bonding issues. Not all customers come to us knowing what they need or whether what they want can be produced efficiently, which is why our engineers and materials specialists provide technical support and recommendations that help our customers solve highly complex and specific adhesive issues. These issues can include:
Bonding to specific substrates
Meeting to industry regulations
Operating within specific temperatures or other environmental conditions
Vibration or noise dampening
Extreme temperature mitigation
Insulating from temperature, sound, or electrical interference
Sealing from air and moisture
Decreasing product and part costs
Simplifying assembly processes
We work with you to troubleshoot and find solutions and optimize your assembly process. We have experience diagnosing and solving problems efficiently. Whether you’re bonding, insulating, gasketing or sealing, we have the solution to your adhesive challenges.
Efficiency and Cost Savings
The best tape solution is not always the least expensive, but there are still many ways we help our customers keep their costs as low as possible. These include:
Sourcing the most cost-efficient materials with the best performance for the application.
Deploying fabrication techniques that have high yields, helping reduce the price per part.
Customizing tapes and parts to your specific requirements, which minimizes material waste and helps keep costs down.
Completing high volume orders with precision, repeatability, and efficiency.
Creating custom parts that decrease assembly time. Even if each part is more expensive, you can still save on production costs by decreasing assembly time, increasing your rate of production and, and reducing labor costs.
We have quick turnaround times on most orders and can help you get the parts you need based on your production schedule.
Product Design and Prototyping
Need something new? We’ll work with you to ensure your part design meets the requirements of your applications. We specialize in part prototyping and testing, helping you quickly move through the process to ensure that each new product meets your performance expectations. We can even help test your parts and products to ensure they meet ASTM standards and any other industry regulations.
Work with a 3M™ Partner
As a 3M preferred converter, we combine our engineering expertise with their world-class products, support, and testing capabilities. This gives us access to a range of resources that benefit our clients, including:
Exclusive training with 3M products
Relationships with 3M engineering and product teams and test laboratories as well as any breakthroughs made by their team
The best pricing on their products
Faster lead times
Learn more about our partnership with 3M here. We also partner with other leading manufacturers of pressure sensitive adhesive tapes and foam and rubber gasket materials. See an expanded list of our partners here.