In casual conversation it is not unusual to hear the question “So what do you do for a living?”. Whenever that question comes up, I try to gauge the interest in my initial reply before going into too much depth.
My immediate response to “so, what do you do for a living?”
is that “our products are on the space station and in your local fast food
restaurant and many places in between”. If their eyes haven’t glazed over,
and if a follow up question is asked, I’ll get into more detail. We are
fortunate to run a business that crosses over many industries with many neat
applications that are interesting to anyone who is involved with manufacturing
in just about any way. The second line in my reply is that you may not have
seen or used our products, but they have played a small part in your life!
PTFE coated fiberglass products find their way into diverse
applications because of their
unique operating properties. High temperature resistance, electrically insulating,
chemical resistant, non-stick, will not burn or support flame, excellent
tensile strength, FDA approved for direct food contact, etc.
In industrial applications, Teflon* coated fiberglass
fabrics, tapes, belts, sewing threads, cords and yarns take advantage of one or
more of these properties and can be fabricated or further processed to make
some pretty unique items. The space station items include PTFE coated fiberglass
sewing threads (space suits, insulation panels), PTFE coated fiberglass
braided tie cords and lacing tapes (wire bundles, draw cords) and even PTFE coated fiberglass
fabrics (insulation quilts, covers). When it comes to your local
fast-food restaurant, our PTFE coated fiberglass fabrics end up as “baskets”
in toaster ovens, liners for clam-shell grills and cookie sheets for baking,
well, cookies! Some more unique applications include embroidery
threads for very high temperature exhaust gas shields (won’t fade in the high
heat and won’t burn or support flame and are not attacked by any fuels or
hydraulic fluids), dryer belts
for screen printers (high temperature, non-stick), smoker
rack liners for smoke-house meats (FDA approval, high temperature,
non-stick), and PTFE
Coated fiberglass sewing threads (stitching insulation blankets for gas
turbines, exhaust manifolds, engine compartments).
If you’re still reading, then at some point you developed an
interest in manufacturing at some level. Thanks for hanging around!
Manufacturing appears to be on the rebound and many exciting applications for
PTFE coated fiberglass products are certainly still ahead…we look forward to
working with you on your unique application. Zing us a note for more information!