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AS FEATURED IN AUSTRALIAN CONSTRUCTION FOCUS A STICKY SITUATION HB FULLER
A S F E A T U R E D I N A U S T R A L I A N C O N S T R U C T I O N F O C U S
A STICKY SITUATION
HB FULLER
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Written By John Boley
HB Fuller products can stick almost anything to almost anything else. In terms of the construction industry, the company’s twin focuses are on providing high quality adhesives and sealants for the DIY and trade sectors. As far as the rest of HB Fuller’s interests are concerned, the ‘industrial’ division sticks a com-plete catalogue of things together – the ends of toilet rolls, labels to beverage bottles, sealing cartons – hot-melt glues in particular are used extensively in consumer prod-ucts and that accounts for around
half of the Australian business of this global company.
Headquartered in Minnesota, in the United States, HB Fuller has a worldwide turnover of some US$1.4 billion and 36 manufactur-ing facilities; the company splits its business into three regions, the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific, with the latter division’s head of-fice in Shanghai.
Given the firm’s substantial pres-ence in China – not to mention the various other factors such as the strength of the Aussie dollar,
labour costs and environmental considerations – it is a small sur-prise to find that HB Fuller has a significant manufacturing base here in Australia: Dandenong, to be precise, where we talked to marketing manager Rod Harry. He explained that the company actually exports, to areas includ-ing New Zealand, India and Sin-gapore (a major construction-industry market in its own right, of course), the Middle East, Ma-laysia and Papua New Guinea, and even to China.
Indeed, HB Fuller recently signed
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Headquartered in Minnesota, in the United States, HB Fuller has a worldwide turnover of some US$1.4 billion and 36
manufacturing facilities; the company splits its business into three regions, the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific...
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up with the Australian-Made association and proudly proclaims its logo. Rod says, “It’s not an easy matter to compete, manufacturing in Australia and exporting into China. But there are certain performance require-ments that can’t be met with the products they manu-facture there, which is where we have the edge here in Victoria.” He says the Chinese have considerable respect for the technology contained in the Australian-made construction adhesives, sealants and coatings and they are used to great effect in the booming China building trade. “They take container loads of our prod-ucts – our formula works and they respect it.”
HB Fuller also manufactures products for the DIY mar-ket, the building trade and hardware and industrial out-lets, with more than 200 products that can be found in Mitre 10, John Danks Hardware, Masters, Natbuild & HBT group stores as well as independent construc-tion and engineering outlets. “We have an extremely comprehensive range of products from gap fillers to solvent construction adhesives and extending to our latest modified silyl polymer (MS) technology.”
The majority of these products are supplied in 300ml cartridges and 600ml sausage packs. “That’s where we come to the construction side of the business,” says Rod, “which is our forte. We have some terrific construction sealants that are recognised throughout Australia and abroad as the best for the job.”
“HB Fuller products can stick
almost anything to almost
anything else.”
Construction products are broken down into two main categories: products for residential use and products for commercial use. Products supplied to the residen-tial building sector include the likes of plasterboard stud adhesives, sub-flooring and timber flooring adhe-sives, wet area sealants, silicones and coloured caulk-ing compounds. Well known brands include Maxbond, Floorbond XMS, Toolbox and Caulk in Colours. On the commercial side of the business HB Fuller offers a wide range of sealants for waterproofing applications in areas such as architectural cladding, glazing and gen-eral residential or commercial waterproofing. “We also have specialised sealants that are used for seal-ing expansion joints in concrete panel structures, and sealants for ensuring the fire and acoustic integrity of buildings. Well known commercial brands include Fire-sound, Fulaseal and HBF-100 Architectural sealant.” This range also extends into higher performance elas-
tic sealants and high structural strength adhesives that are used in the manufacturing environment for appli-cations such as recreational vehicle assembly and port-able building construction.
Rod explains that “we have so many products in our range because there are so many different substrates, so many different environmental conditions and so many different performance requirements.” For op-timum performance the compatibility between sub-strate and adhesive needs to be carefully considered – this may sound obvious, but as most of us know, around the house we will stick two pieces of timber together with the same adhesive we would use to repair a shoe, and often unknowingly accept a com-promise in performance. Naturally that kind of com-promise is unacceptable when you’re fixing an archi-tectural panel to the side of a building, or an exterior skin on a caravan or motorhome.
Careful calculation goes into determining the ap-propriate compound to be used in any situation, not only taking account of the adhesion to the substrates, but also external factors such as the wind loading the structure is specified to withstand and other vari-able climatic conditions such as temperature and hu-
midity. It is vital to know what the minimum bonded surface area requirements are to meet those wind loadings, with an appropriate engineering safety fac-tor based on the ultimate bond strength recorded in pre-testing. This is not only for the purpose of ensur-ing the adhesive and cohesive integrity of the chosen adhesive, but also for minimising the risk of substrate failure. “These calculations are all things we perform and once we know what the bonded surface needs to be, we can specify the application requirements to achieve a system that performs. If a panel requires 20 fixings for example, there needs to be research into determining the strength of each fixing and how many you need. It’s a different way of doing things but the requirements are the same.”
“... THE BIGGEST DRIVER OF CHANGE HAS BEEN ‘GREEN’ BUILDING AND THE GROWTH OF THE GREEN STAR INITIATIVES.”
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This is not something to leave to the customer. HB Fuller offers training – “it’s something we do very well. We provide our customers and distributors with the knowledge required to sell and use our products. We also provide technical support, of course – it’s not as simple as selling a product and saying ‘there you go’.”
Customers come to know the products they need. Con-tractors tend to be fairly specialised, says Rod: “they could be in interior fitout, or construction joint sealing for example, and that is their expertise and they have products they regularly use. Often there are products that are specified by architects or engineers so they know what is required.”
“We provide our customers
and distributors with the
knowledge required to sell
and use our products.”
Not only Australian but global standards apply to all kinds of sealants and adhesives, although the details can vary from country to country. Mainly, they govern emissions – of things like volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or isocyanates, which are ever more closely controlled in the search to end global warming, main-tain indoor air quality, and ensure the health and safety of users. HB Fuller has a laboratory at its Dandenong factory which gives it the capability to formulate prod-ucts and assist customers to find the ideal solution for bonding and sealing a large variety of building sys-tems. “We have a test facility in the laboratory where we can perform any number of required performance pre-tests on adhesives or sealants and come up with appropriately performing systems. As such, other com-panies may specify our sealant or adhesive as a com-ponent of their building system. That may be anything from weatherproofing joints in aluminium panels on the external façade of buildings right through to struc-turally bonding the panels onto the sub-frame of the building without the use of any mechanical fixings.”
Adhesives have become increasingly popular for se-curing the visible parts of buildings, largely for aes-thetic reasons and speed of application, says Rod. It obviates the need for mechanical fixings through a panel on the outside of a building. “If you can use an adhesive system, you can achieve a flatter fin-ish; there are fewer or no visible mechanical fixings.” There is also the advantage that an adhesive bond can achieve a very high structural integrity – in many cases
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you would require a large number of mechanical fixings to achieve the equivalent strength.
Rod explains that there is a good deal of innovation in the building industry and a steady stream of new or different ways of doing things. “Adhesives have come a long way in their capabilities, not just in terms of improved ver-satility but also in terms of achieving high performance properties with environmental impact in mind. In this re-spect the construction industry has followed the lead of the industrial sector. Recently – in the last six or seven years – the biggest driver of change has been ‘green’ building and the growth of the Green Star initiatives. In Australia the council concerned has formulated require-ments for the different product categories. “They classify products as being environmentally friendly or friendly to the indoor air quality environment, and as such we have a full range of products that meet the bonding and seal-ing requirements of Green Star rated structures. I can confidently say that as a company we are ahead of the pack in terms of our understanding of the requirements of the Green Building Council when it comes to the use of solvents and the VOC requirements.”
Another arm of HB Fuller’s global business is the Foster Products division, which makes coatings, adhesives and sealants for construction applications. The adhesives are used primarily for bonding of insulation, such as cold wa-ter pipe insulation, and sealants are manufactured for that type of insulation as well. Foster also offers exception-ally high performance anti-microbial coatings that can be used in areas where the requirement is to actively pre-vent mould growth: areas like commercial food prepara-tion rooms, or breweries. There are also coatings for use in commercial buildings within the air conditioning duct-work that are designed to prevent sick building syndrome caused by mould and microbial detritus growing in wet and humid areas. These high performance coatings are guaran-teed, some for as long as 10 years, to prevent mould, and can be used in wall cavities, for remedial work in flood affected areas or inside air conditioning ducts.
HB Fuller has a commitment not only to performance, says Rod, but also to the environment. “We are part of the Australian packaging covenant which is all about reduction of waste, recycling and what impact a com-pany in Australia can have on the environment of Aus-tralia.” Summing the company up, Rod says: “We are trying to be the leader in technology of environmen-tally friendly products whilst meeting the various performance needs of the construction.”
“ADHESIVES HAVE COME A LONG WAY IN THEIR CAPABILITIES, NOT JUST IN TERMS OF IMPROVED VERSATILITY BUT ALSO IN TERMS OF ACHIEVING HIGH PERFORMANCE PROPERTIES WITH ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT IN MIND.”
H.B. Fuller Australia Pty Ltd
16-22 Red Gum Drive,Dandenong South, Victoria 3175
AUSTRALIA
Telephone: 1800 423 855
www.hbfuller.com.au
675 Victoria Street, Abbotsford | Victoria 3067 | Ph: 03 8682 0423 | ABN 93 143 238 126
