Hardick is a family-owned company founded over 100 years ago in Enschede, The Netherlands. Started in the textile industry the company moved towards technical textiles and now focusses completely on PTFE coated belts, fabrics and tapes.
The company designs and fabricates their own PTFE coated glass and aramid fabrics. In the factory, they cut the fabrics to the exact size of the customers machine and apply specific edges, joints and extras.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
HARDICK: Hardick supplies belts into numerous industries worldwide. Our factory is in Enschede in the Netherlands so, of course, our main region of operation is western Europe.
We have a big market share for PTFE belts in the can-industry, in the flooring- and carpet industry, in the nonwoven industry, in the automotive industry and in the tortilla-industry.
E.E: What’s the news for 2021 about new products?
HARDICK: We are developing our two ply and film laminates more and more. We are now working on the machinery to be able to make laminates up to 4000 mm wide.
We keep developing our welding equipment for customers. We have introduced the EasyWeldingSystem on all our PTFE sealing presses. With this EWS our customers can make the same high-quality, strong and very thin joints without needing the experience our engineers have.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
HARDICK: We produce PTFE coated conveyor belts. These belts can run continuously from -70C to 260C and have very good non-stick properties. The belts range from 30 cm long and 2 cm wide sealing belts for the packaging industry to 150 mtr long and over 5 meter wide for the non woven, carpet and flooring industries. The PTFE coated fabrics (woven glass or woven aramids) come as closed material for baking, melting or laminating and open mesh for drying, heating or semi-melting.
We also supply self adhesive PTFE glass tapes and slit rolls of fabric and film. These are used in packaging machines or moulds.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
HARDICK: The market for PTFE coated belts, though small is a mature market. The basic principles of the material have been proven and everybody can run a PTFE coated belt if they follow simple rules.
Of course, we keep innovating new specific products and production machines to expand our possible circle of customers.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
HARDICK:
- Laminated PTFe coated belts to combine the best properties;
- EasyWeldingSystem sealing equipment so customers can make the joints themselves without lots of experience.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2021?
HARDICK: At the moment I do not dare to make any predictions. The business is good, but uncertain. We do see that more and more companies open up for new projects and innovative solutions.
