NON ASBESTOS AND CORK SHEETING FOR CONVERTORS

While Gasket Convertors still rely heavily on premium branded material manufactures in the UK, and would certainly not recommend light-heartedly changing from a branded material to a lower cost unbranded non-asbestos sheet or cork material without extensive testing in critical circumstances, we do know that there are many situations where brand isn’t always necessary.

Asbestos v Non-Asbestos

Having been a TBA distributor in the ‘good old days’ when Asbestos ruled (we now know there was nothing ‘good’ about it!) and also being major Bestobell Engineering, Beldam and James Walker asbestos sheet convertors, when the switch away from Asbestos happened everyone had to change.

We soon realised that the new ‘Non-Asbestos’ or ‘N.A.F.’, (or any other abbreviation used!), was not up to the extreme working conditions of the material they were replacing. So, over the years I had used various different suppliers’ materials, culminating with a mass move to one supplier in the early 1990’s – Montero (now Fibras Y Elastomeros) in Spain. However, while the material was found fit for purpose in various applications, many still wanted to use branded materials that were better known and today FyE material is not widely available in the UK.

Branded Sheeting

Today, as a Klinger agent, we promote Klingersil materials wherever they are specified but realise that the market also needs good quality, less expensive sheet materials for gasket conversion. If a customer asks us to supply Novus, Walker, Flexitallic or Reinz materials, we will always comply with their wishes, and so to have a competitively priced non-branded material is equally as important.

Finding niche markets with premium grades for chemical applications or high temperatures, has ensured the ‘big name’ sheet producers maintain high value market share. This leaves the commercial or more industrial markets to be filled by less expensive materials. However these need to meet specific quality levels and until asbestos is banned Worldwide, we would not contemplate using materials from factories abroad that process that material alongside non-asbestos materials.

For many years now, we have been using European non-asbestos gasket sheeting for our unbranded work. During that time, gaskets have been made for quite arduous conditions – without any failures.

We’ve now been asked if we could market this sheeting in UK and have decided to do this alongside our Cork sheeting, which we’ve also been using successfully now for over 12 years. Initially we are offering the grades we use, but many other qualities in both Non-Asbestos and Cork are available, and we are able to offer equivalents to most established grades here in the UK.