Collection: Tapes

Dagobert Industrie stocks the technical adhesive tapes used in industry: double-sided tapes for structural bonding, single-sided tapes for protection and masking, transfer tapes, sealing tapes and application accessories.

By family

• Double-sided tapes, from unsupported transfer tapes to VHB acrylic foams.
• Single-sided tapes: cloth, vinyl, polyester, PTFE, glass cloth.
• Aluminium tapes, for sealing and heat resistance.
• Packaging tapes and application accessories.
• UHMW PE protection tapes, against abrasion and friction.

A tape is chosen on four points

1. The adhesive. Rubber bonds very fast and very firmly on first contact, but it ages badly in heat and UV. Acrylic bonds less strongly at first and builds strength over several days, then lasts for years outdoors. Silicone is the only one that adheres to siliconised surfaces and holds at very high temperature.
2. The backing. It determines tear resistance, conformability and bond line thickness. A polyester backing does not stretch, a cloth tears by hand, a foam takes up a flatness defect.
3. The surface energy of the material. This is the most often overlooked point. Low surface energy plastics, polypropylene and polyethylene above all, repel standard adhesives. They need an adhesive formulated for them, or a primer.
4. Application temperature. Most pressure-sensitive adhesives wet out markedly less below fifteen degrees. Applying in a cold workshop gives lower performance than the data sheet states, and the gap is not made up later.

Pressure matters as much as the product

A pressure-sensitive adhesive does not bond on contact but under compression: it needs force to conform to the microscopic texture of the surface. Without rolling it down, the real contact area is only a fraction of the apparent area, and measured strength falls far below the stated figure.

On an acrylic foam tape, strength keeps building over the hours following application and only reaches its final level after several days at room temperature. A test carried out ten minutes after application says nothing about final performance.