When you need to seal between two hard surfaces, a sponge tape can often be a viable option.
In these situations, they perform a bit like a gasket. They're compressed between the two harder materials to create a seal. Our most popular type of foam tape is our Adhesive Neoprene Rubber Sponge Tape. In this short post, we summarise its' capabilities.
What Is It?
This sponge tape is made from a type of rubber called Neoprene. One of the best selling and most versatile rubber types out there, Neoprene is known for its' overall economy, reasonable resistance to many types of fluids and good UV resistance.
The type of sponge used in this tape is a closed cell construction. When it is compressed by 10% it will create a water tight seal.
This tape also has an adhesive backing on one side. This is designed primarily to help with installation so you can stick it to one surface before mating the other.
Our Neoprene Sponge Sealing Tape is used by our customers for all kinds of applications. Everything from industrial marine and auto maintenance, making gaskets, sealing electrical boxes and light fittings through to less demeaning jobs like sealing up garden sheds at home.
What Does It Do Well?
This industrial grade sponge rubber sealing tape has a few things going for it. After years of working with it, we've found it to be...
- Quite economical. We're not going to say its' the cheapest nor have we tested every alternative out there but in our experience the value and performance it provides is quite good for the price.
- Easy to work with. This tape requires no special tools (though cleaning the surface you want to stick it to is always a good idea). You can cut it with scissors or a stanley knife.
- Available in a wide range of sizes. We'll discuss this in more detail below.
- Suitable for a variety of applications. As mentioned above, this tape is trusted by everyone from heavy industrial users to DIYers.
Anything It Struggles With?
This tape can't do everything. As with all of our products, we supply this tape because we believe in it but it is not perfect for every requirement. Some of its' known limitations include:
- One colour only: black.
- One sided adhesive only. No option for double sided or without adhesive (parts made from Sponge Sheet may be an option in some cases).
- High temperatures (anything over 105°C).
- Low temperatures (below -15°C).
- Agressive chemicals (Neoprene is generally not resistant to many fuels, acids or caustics). More information on this is available on our Rubber Chemical Resistance Guide.
How Can It Be Bought?
We are proud to slit this tape to width ourselves. We list all our standard thicknesses and widths on our website here.
Though we cannot customise the tape thickness or roll length, we can do custom widths. If you would like to enquire about those for a specific job, please do reach out and we'll do all we can to assist.
For more information on this tape, please visit one of the product pages for the various thicknesses. All have links to technical data and more. If the question you have isn't answered, don't hesitate to contact us. We'll help whenever we can.