H.B. Fuller - Kömmerling

The innovative seal for RVs

EternaBond® Foam Gasket Tape (FGT) and EternaBond® Roof and Seam Sealant Tape are currently two highlights H.B. Fuller offers in the caravanning sector for OEM partners and for the after sales market

Words Peter Hirtschulz

The basis for H.B. Fuller’s success, from its founding in 1887 to its current status as a 3 billion-dollar global player, is innovative thinking. H.B. Fuller’s team is focused on their customers, their business and knowing what’s coming next. This allows the company to find those fantastic customer needs and then collaborate with them to design game-changing adhesive solutions. H.B. Fuller as a total solutions provider to the RV industry can help OEMs innovate faster and provide process expertise to their manufacturing processes, so they can bring their ideas to market more quickly and enjoy a competitive advantage, while delivering long-lasting performance to the vehicle. Mark Porter, Product Manager for Transportation at H.B. Fuller, explains that in the production of caravans and motorhomes, more and more manufacturers are using H.B. Fuller‘s one-step installation tape to make permanent, aesthetically pleasing repairs to roofs, seams, and corners of units. H.B. Fuller offers premium solutions to the transportation industry. Their products address evolving roof and seam protection demands for recreational vehicles (RVs), buses, cargo trailers, and heavy duty trucks. By understanding the stringent requirements of this industry, H.B. Fuller develops customized products that keep your vehicles on the road longer, come rain or shine. The EternaBond® Roof and Seam Sealant Tape has been known for years. Now, Mark Porter presents the EternaBond® Foam Gasket Tape specially designed for sealing windows and doors.

EternaBond® Foam Gasket Tape

Mark Porter describes the product: “The EternaBond® Foam Gasket Tape is a game-changing hybrid solution featuring multiple sealing technologies applied in one time saving step. It consists of a highly compressible PVC foam core encapsulated in a tubular tape with a cohesive butyl sealant. This flexible material easily conforms to all geometries. The foam core of EternaBond® Foam Gasket Tap allows for outstanding flexibility to irregularly contoured surfaces. The tape provides a secure seal that helps protect against water penetration and prevents corrosion and moisture damage. In addition its materi-

al structure compensates for the change in substrate materials with temperature fluctuations from -30 degrees to +80 degrees Celsius (-30 degrees to +180 degrees Fahrenheit).“ This tape greatly reduces the importance of conventional sealing processes, for example with spray guns and liquid sealing materials. This is because the tape or its contents do not harden and, above all, both do not rot over time due to environmental influences. These advantages benefit all customers. In production, another advantage comes into play: manual skills in handling liquid sealing material and a spray gun are no longer required. The tape can be easily installed by just one person without any special precision skills. After installation, it automatically adapts to the vehicle’s technical conditions. This saves time and provides optimum sealing quality.

EternaBond® Roof and Seam Sealant Tape

EternaBond® Roof and Seam Sealant Tape is another product that specifically secures the seams of wall and roof elements, as well as sensitive cut-outs for roof windows, air conditioning systems and other roof structures. Apart from the vibration and shaking components that an RV is subjected to during the journey, the environmental influences with different temperatures and other (moisture) influences must also be particularly taken into account. H.B. Fuller’s EternaBond® is one of the highest performing sealants available to meet this challenge. EternaBond® uses a patented technology called MicroSealant® to create a barrier that remains flexible in hot and cold extreme temperatures from -40 to +150 degrees Celsius (-70 to +270 degrees Fahrenheit). Therefore, EternaBond® provides high quality UV light protection and is designed to flex with the surface to prevent shrinkage of seams exposed to repeated environmental stresses. Thermal resistance in particular is critical to the long-lasting performance of air conditioning and window systems installed in motorhome and caravan roofs. EternaBond® Roof and Seam Sealant Tapes cover virtually all roof types, roof accessories and seams. Different tape variations are available for easy and durable applications on every surface used in the industry. Greater strength and flexibility in extreme temperatures, waterproof and airtight protection and ease of application are just some of the benefits. Vehicles are optimally protected by the tape preventing weathering. The single-step installation tape also provides durable, aesthetically pleasing repairs to roofs, seams and corners of units. No additional sealants (and their precise application) are required as the tape has a built-in primer. For both refinishing and original equipment, this decisively reduces material costs and production time. While EternaBond® sealant tape has become synonymous with RV repairs, OEMs in the RV industry have found it to be so effective that it’s used in the assembly process as well. As a premium product that is quick to use, OEMs save time during the manufacturing process and can increase production volumes.

Total solutions provider to the RV industry

H.B. Fuller provides complete solutions for RV roof, underbody and everything in between, with their wide range of technologies including MMAs, urethanes, MS polymers, water-based adhesives, high-bond tapes, silicones, roof-sealing butyl tapes and latex-based protective undercoating. They also offer low-VOC and haps-free solvent-based solutions to provide safer and greener products. Collaboration is a key principle for H.B. Fuller, by forging close partnerships with customers in the main European RV industry players or small manufacturers, OEMs and other allied suppliers, being involved with new products from the very beginning, and delivering innovative, technical know-how.

Company profile

H.B. Fuller

From a one-man wallpaper paste shop in Minnesota in 1887, H.B. Fuller has grown into a $3 billion adhesives global leader today. Its recent acquisition of Royal Adhesives and Sealants, including the KÖMMERLING Chemische Fabrik GmbH business, created a unique powerhouse of RV adhesive and sealant expertise, supplying products for every conceivable RV application.

Above: EternaBond FGT door installation and EternaBond FGT Seal

Kömmerling

Headquartered in Pirmasens, some 170 km south west of Frankfurt, and founded in 1897, Kömmerling is a leading international manufacturer of high-quality adhesives and sealants. In this capacity, it has been supplying the RV industry in Europe and beyond for more than 20 years. It became a member of H.B. Fuller’s global network through the company’s acquisition of Royal Adhesives & Sealants in October 2017.