Adhesives Used in Installing Rubber Flooring Robert Morris 04/08/2005 Rubber-Cal Inc. Products discussed in this article: Elephant Bark Rubber Flooring, Eco-Sport Tiles, Elephant Bark Installation Guide (PDF), Eco-Sport Installation (PDF) When adhering a rubber product to another surface, it is important to choose the right adhesive. For most applications, especially permanent rubber flooring, polyurethane based adhesives are the most effective choice. This type of adhesive is suitable for gluing rubber products to most common sub-surfaces (i.e. concrete, asphalt, wood, etc). They are among the only sorts of adhesive which will stick to rubber. Being generally very viscous, polyurethane based adhesives should be applied to the sub-floor with a V-notched trowel. They tend to set rather slowly, so installations using polyurethane adhesives should allow at least 24 hours between installation and normal use of the area, depending on humidity. Since water acts as a catalyst to this sort of glue, once the adhesive has been spread over the sub-floor, adhesion time can be decreased by misting the surface before laying the rubber product onto the adhesive. For rolled products, rubber flooring can be seam sealed so that the floor surface acts as a complete waterproof sheet. This can be accomplished with a urethane seam sealant (e.g. Chemrex® CX-22). These products usually appear in tubes which are fitted for a standard caulking gun. Seams are usually recommended to be 1/16" between each roll. Sealant is then applied between the seams, and allowed to dry (up to 48 hours before normal traffic is appropriate). Because the urethane sealant is basically the same material which is used to bind the rubber particulates together in recycled rubber products, once sealed the flooring will be practically indistinguishable from a single sheet. Robert Morris Email: robert@rubbercal.com |
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Adhesives Used in Installing Rubber Flooring Robert Morris 04/08/2005 Rubber-Cal Inc. Products discussed in this article: Elephant Bark Rubber Flooring, Eco-Sport Tiles, Elephant Bark Installation Guide (PDF), Eco-Sport Installation (PDF) When adhering a rubber product to another surface, it is important to choose the right adhesive. For most applications, especially permanent rubber flooring, polyurethane based adhesives are the most effective choice. This type of adhesive is suitable for gluing rubber products to most common sub-surfaces (i.e. concrete, asphalt, wood, etc). They are among the only sorts of adhesive which will stick to rubber. Being generally very viscous, polyurethane based adhesives should be applied to the sub-floor with a V-notched trowel. They tend to set rather slowly, so installations using polyurethane adhesives should allow at least 24 hours between installation and normal use of the area, depending on humidity. Since water acts as a catalyst to this sort of glue, once the adhesive has been spread over the sub-floor, adhesion time can be decreased by misting the surface before laying the rubber product onto the adhesive. For rolled products, rubber flooring can be seam sealed so that the floor surface acts as a complete waterproof sheet. This can be accomplished with a urethane seam sealant (e.g. Chemrex® CX-22). These products usually appear in tubes which are fitted for a standard caulking gun. Seams are usually recommended to be 1/16" between each roll. Sealant is then applied between the seams, and allowed to dry (up to 48 hours before normal traffic is appropriate). Because the urethane sealant is basically the same material which is used to bind the rubber particulates together in recycled rubber products, once sealed the flooring will be practically indistinguishable from a single sheet. Robert Morris Email: robert@rubbercal.com |
Elephant Bark Rubber Flooring |
Eco-Sport Rubber Flooring |
