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NEWSLETTER

National Gypsum

Charlotte, NC USA

The customer

National Gypsum is one of the largest gypsum board producers in the world. Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, the company is a full-line supplier, recognized in the industry for customer service and product quality. Gypsum board is the company's primary product, and National Gypsum is the second largest producer in the United States. The company has 17 operating gypsum board plant locations strategically located near metropolitan areas. National Gypsum's gypsum board is marketed under the Gold Bond® BRAND. National Gypsum has six plants producing interior finishing products under the ProForm® BRAND. The primary product is joint compound which you may hear called "ready mix" or "drywall mud". Cement board, marketed under the PermaBase® BRAND, is the company's third business line. Cement board is produced in four plants, and is used primarily as an underlayment for tile walls, floors and countertops.

National Gypsum Logo

Application

In the past, rubber belts were mainly used as forming and setting belts in plasterboard production. Forbo Siegling has replaced these rubber belts by a 9 mm thin Transilon PVC belt with two-ply fabric tension member.
The success of this product is based on: Its extremely flat and hard surface, top abrasion resistance, superb friction values, low elongation, excellent lateral stiffness, very accurate thickness tolerances and also around the splice.

These characteristics are essential for the curing process and make this belt a unique product on the market. What’s more, fast and reliable splicing and easy repair of the belt’s surface are true solution-driven arguments for end-users. Scratches and holes from the production process in the old rubber belts led to vast quality problems occurring in the gypsum boards and were almost irreparable. The new Forbo Siegling PVC belt means that repairs take only a matter of a few minutes without any trained support. The belts are tensioned and tracked only once during the run-in period. Due to the two-ply, high-tech fabric tension member there’s no need to re-tension them every few days.

Our belting solution

We provided E X/2 V28/V28 MT/MT grey, 906737 as an alternative to a comparable competitor’s PVC belt. Higher wear resistant cover which should withstand better against fiberglass backed board and more longitudinally stiff belt to address scalloping of edges which causes imperfections in the board should extend belt life and provide better performance. Our belt also has less PVC softeners which have a propensity to leach out of the belt causing some build up on the support rollers.

National Gypsum is also quite pleased that FMS has North American based company fitters and tooling along with sales support to better service their locations. Other competitors have to send fitters and tooling from Europe which are slow to react to emergencies. Rubber manufacturers do not offer their own fitters and often time when there is an issue the manufacturer and the fitter blame each other, which is problematic for National Gypsum.

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Solutions Bild 5671

Result

E X/2 V28/V28 MT/MT grey, 906737 is working well. All the technical advantages have translated to exceptional belt performance. Based on success at Apollo beach we have been awarded a second belt at National Gypsum.

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