Although Apollo Adhesives is not a name you are likely to come across everyday, its products are probably holding together the things you wear, sit on, travel in etc.
The company is also active in many areas of construction and soon it will be specifically targeting the flat roof market with a new adhesive and a new application tool.
RCI deputy editor, Nathan Bushell, visited Apollo's offices in Tamworth to find out more.
There's something secretive about Apollo Adhesives. Perhaps that is what comes of creating something that, by its very nature, is hidden away.
Apollo Adhesives' office and manufacturing unit in Tamworth is low-key. There is no huge machinery that comes crashing down, or super-heated raw material being squeezed into shape. Instead, huge vats of adhesive and chemicals are monitored by a crack team of chemists. An important job, since one small error here can cost Apollo's clients thousands of pounds if the final product is not held together as it should be.
Big leap
Apollo Adhesives is about to make a big leap into the flat roofing marketing, by producing an application system for built-up roofs. Ian Cornelius, Apollo sales manager, told RCI that the company had teamed up with Ruberoid to create an easy-to-use, strong adhesive, to compete in a market that is increasingly dominated by cold applied and flame-free systems.
What is striking about this new product is its application method. Mr Cornelius told RCI that Apollo and Ruberoid wanted to promote a more accurate way of distributing the adhesive on roofs. 'I've seen roofers with tins of adhesive with holes punched into the bottom swinging them from side to side while walking across the roof,' he said. 'It's hardly scientific; there's nothing to gauge the size of the holes in the tin, or how much he is pouring on the roof. Also, any adhesive left in the tin goes to waste.'
Unfussy
With this in mind, Apollo has designed an application tool that should combat these drawbacks. RCI is not at liberty to divulge the precise design here, but the prototype looks to be an unfussy, but logical approach to the distribution of adhesive on flat roofs.
The adhesive itself is a moisture curing polyurethane adhesive, from the family that created Astrolok and Fastack, on which Apollo Adhesives has built its name. And the method of application should reduce potential waste.
So, watch this space, as Apollo and Ruberoid hope to be launching the product before the end of the year. |
