Acrylic Adhesive Backed Silicone Gaskets

Is Silicone PSA required for silicone material?
We often see silicone based adhesive specified with silicone materials. Silicone adhesives are expensive as compared to acrylic adhesives, in some cases more than 5 times the cost of acrylics. Silicone PSA’s bond strength is not as good as acrylics and there are limited offerings. So why are silicone adhesives being specified? Silicone adhesives can be adhered to silicone material without surface preparation. Many fabricators do not have the technology to apply acrylics to silicone materials, however Stockwell has been doing it for years.

When should silicone adhesives be specified?
Silicone adhesives do have their niche, they are great for very low and high temperature extremes where acrylics and rubber based adhesive lose their efficacy.

Having a Pressure Sensitive Adhesive (PSA) backing on gaskets is not required to make a good seal but is often recommended to aid in assembly. The added cost of the adhesive is offset quickly with the time saved during assembly.

For more information about materials contact visit Stockwell Elastomerics at stockwell.com or call 215-335-3005.

Adhesive Backed Gasket

For decades Stockwell has been applying pressure sensitive adhesive backings onto gasketing materials. Adhesive backed gaskets are very appealing to our customers for several reasons. More often engineers and designers are specifying adhesive backings for gaskets. A peel and stick gasket (or peel and stick vibration pad) offers some nice features that plain or non-adhesive backed gaskets don’t have, below is a list of a few. (Link: Stockwell adhesive offerings)

Ease of installation – a peel and stick gasket allows operators and assembly technicians to install a gasket or pad quickly and easily. The time saved by having an adhesive backing justifies the additional cost.

Gasket Positioning – when an adhesive backed gasket is installed and “stuck” in place it stays in place when the lid or mating surfaces are compressed. Without being fixed in place the motion of the mating faces could move or twist the gasket cause a leakage.

Kiss-cutting - adhesive backed gaskets are able to be kiss-cut (see blog posting Oct. 12, 2007). Manufacturing engineers like this because parts are presented to the operators on neat roll and parts are removed from the liner versus individual parts requiring tedious liner removal

Bolt hole position – a supported adhesive backing or double coated adhesive (see blog posting July 30, 2007) gives a gasket that has a series of bolt holes dimensional stability. Essentially the thin P.E.T. layer does not let the gasket stretch in the X and Y dimensions. Without this support layer the gasket may stretch during installation and the holes will not line up.

Stockwell offers a wide range of adhesive backed gaskets. Adhesive backings are applied to the vast majority of materials. These include Poron urethane foam, silicone foam, silicone sponge, solid silicone, Neoprene sponge, electrically conductive gasket materials, thermal pads to name a few. Adhesives such as 3M’s Low Surface Energy (LSE) adhesives, transfer adhesives, double coated (or supported adhesives), thermally conductive adhesives and electrically conductive adhesives are available.

Stockwell is not limited to applying silicone adhesive to silicone rubber. With several proprietary processes, Stockwell is capable of bonding a wide range of quality adhesives including acrylics and silicones. (Stockwell adhesive offerings)

For more information regarding adhesive backed gaskets, grades of adhesive, peel and stick or adhesive offerings, please contact us at service@stockwell.com or 215-335-3005.