Fasteners help DisneyFest 3M exhibit hold it all together

St. Paul, MN--When 3M's Industrial Tape and Specialties Div. wanted to show off some of its products, it found a forum in a 3M exhibit that is part of DisneyFest, a traveling theme park which in October 1997 began a tour of six different locations in the Asia Pacific region.

The 3M exhibit is a facility where 3M entertains guests, explains 3M's functions through six interactive displays that focus on 3M markets in the Asia Pacific region, and presents market/customer-focused presentations.

Convention Exhibit Services (CES) in St. Paul built the exhibit, which covers 5,106 sq feet when set up and includes 5,200 sq feet of display panels, using many products from the Industrial Tape and Specialties Div. These products include 3M Dual Lock Reclosable Fastener SJ-3560 and 3M VHB Tape 4910.

The fastener features mushroom-shaped stems that interlock with each other when closed, and features 3M VHB 4910 tape on the back to provide bonds that offer high-temperature resistance. The 3M VHB tape was used elsewhere in the exhibit to bond display panels to frames.

"We used the tape for bonding polystyrene panels to aluminum panels, and we were trying to get away from having to put anything on the surface of them. The high-bond tape held up marvelously," says Terry Dull, production foreman for CES. "It was clean and a good application."

The SJ-3560 fastener was used to create a multilayered effect on some display surfaces, including one application where a circular panel with highway graphics and a license plate mockup were attached to a larger back panel to create a multilayered effect.

Dull says that the SJ-3560 fastener was used to simulate buck rivet heads in a display, and were used around all graphics and computer screen areas to show the design. "The product gave it a nice finish, and stuck very well," Dull adds. "They worked well in that application. You look at it quickly from a distance, it almost looks like the rivets around the portholes on a boat."

Dull says that the SJ-3560 fastener was also used in some of the glides and other furniture. However, this wasn't the only other application the fastener could be used for.

"We've used a lot more of these fasteners since we did the exhibit," Dull says.