3m adhesive tape
At NEDC we manufacture a lot of different components for aviation, military, medical and electronics. One of the common things we see is trouble with adhesive transfer tapes. In this blog post, we wanted to discuss some tips on choosing the right tape for your adhesive backed gasket.
1. Choose an adhesive tape that is popular if possible.
One of the biggest issues we see is designers may choose an adhesive transfer tape that is not widely available. This creates a few problems:
A. Shelf Life requirements may become a concern. If fresh stock is not constantly turned over, older tape that is still within shelf life but not above a certain threshold such as 75% may not be available.
B. It will increase cost/lead-time. 3M Converters such as NEDC stock a number of tapes. Naturally, we do not stock unpopular tapes.
A few popular tapes in the die cutting industry include 3M 9485PC, 3M 467MP, 3M 9469PC, 3M 9472, 3M 9472LE.
2. Test the tape in the application!
It is always best to test any material in the application to ensure it is going to work as expected. Testing has a few dimensions.
A. The substrate it’s sticking to. You want to be sure the tape you picked will have enough staying power for the length of the application. It is much more difficult to find an adhesive tape that will stick to a powder coated substrate than to a bare aluminum substrate.
B. You want to ensure the tape meets the environmental, temperature, humidity, and other requirements that the application will see. There are fuel-resistant tapes, and high temperature tapes. So finding the right one is critical.
C. Finally, you want to make sure the other side the tape is sticking to will also work. Most die-cutters have priming solutions to make sure the adhesive transfer tape will stick to the gasketing material. However, it would be a good idea to consult with your local die-cutter.
3. Be Specific!
We consistently see designers not be specific about what tape they would like. Keep in mind, there are many, many tapes out there. There are rubber tapes, acrylic tapes, silicone tapes, double-coated tapes, transfer tapes- the list goes on and on. Setting some requirements is a good idea if you are not going to specify an actual tape.
For more information on adhesive backed die-cut parts, or you have an application that could utilize an adhesive backed gasket, please contact sales@nedc.com.