Bandag celebrates 6oth anniversary

Bandag is one of the longest-serving road transport equipment manufacturers in Australia.

We all know that Australian-sourced materials and products are vital for our national security and this is particularly so in the case of critical road transport equipment. Australia may import its truck tyres, but we can at least greatly extend their lives with locally made retreads.

Bandag has been a long-term employer of people in Brisbane’s Wacol area and that commitment was praised by Sarah Hutton, Councillor for Jamboree, who represented the Brisbane Lord Mayor at Bandag’s Diamond Anniversary.

According to Bridgestone Australia & New Zealand Managing Director, Heath Barclay, the milestone is significant.

“Six decades of manufacturing is a huge achievement,” he said.

“This milestone celebrates the history of Bandag in Australia, but also points to the continued relevance retreads play in our market and the role they play in Bridgestone’s vision towards being a sustainable solutions provider.”

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Bandag has outperformed all comers in the Australian retread market over many years and it puts that success down to its ‘cold-cured’ process that was pioneered by Bernhard Nowak, whose initials, ‘BAN’, plus 'D' for his hometown of Darmstadt (Germany) and 'AG', the German equivalent of 'Pty Ltd’, combine to produce the ‘Bandag’ brand name.

Bandag in Australia was begun by Bill McNichol, the founder of Queensland Tyre Retreading Pty Ltd. He’d read about the Bandag process and secured the Australian rights to the process, under US control, in 1961.

McNichol imported a complete retreading plant and installed it in a workshop at Coronation Drive, Brisbane. In 1970 Bandag moved to the Wacol Industrial Estate, where it remains today.

After McNichol’s death in 1970, Blue Metal Industries took over the Australian operation in 1976, followed by Boral in 1982.

In 2000, Bridgestone Australia took over operations and Bridgestone Corporation acquired Bandag Inc, globally, in 2007. Under Bridgestone’s ownership the Wacol (Qld) factory produced its 10 millionth retread in 2019.

Bandag's Wacol plant produces pre-cured tyre treads for eight Bandag retread factories and 30 licensed dealers throughout Australia and New Zealand, but also is the primary producer for the Asia Pacific region, exporting to Thailand, Fiji, China, Korea and Indonesia.

Bandag is also a key part of the global supply chain for other Bridgestone regions, including America and Europe.

“Our success is down to our emphasis on quality and adoption of state-of-the-art equipment, ensuring we remain a viable solution for the local market,” said Bridgestone's General Manager of Retread Business, Greg Nielsen.

“By focussing on quality, we’ve been able to ensure that locally made Bandag retreads are comparable to the quality of new Bridgestone tyres.

“A Bandag retread uses considerably less raw material – including rubber, oil and carbon black – to produce, as well as significantly less water and energy input than that of a new tyre,” he said.

Mr Nielsen pointed out that the Bandag process uses ‘cold-cure’, lower temperatures than traditional ‘hot-cap’ processes that heat the tyre casing and the tread to high temperatures.

“That heat shortens the life of the tyre casing,” said Mr Nielsen.

The factory has two paths, with worn tyres coming into the plant for examination and preparation for retreading, in parallel with the ingredients for making different-sized and different-compound rubber treads.

Bandag uses as much recycled material as possible and is constantly investigating methods of reducing waste and retread costs.

Tread production involves careful weighing of the ingredients to meet the desired tread characteristics, before ‘cooking’ the various tread components.

From this process the tread material is extruded into a long strip of the thickness required to suit different applications and moulded with the desired tread pattern.

While the tread manufacturing process is taking place, in another section of the Wacol factory customers’ worn tyres are separated into batch sizes and very carefully examined for fitness for retreading. Each casing is visually examined inside and out for obvious faults or inclusions, such as nails.

The next stage is an electrical inspection, using a coiled-wire ‘wand’ that checks for non-visible faults.

The next inspection is ‘shearography’, with the casing in a vacuum, while lasers measure any surface anomalies and produce an animated visual of any defects.

At any point in the inspection processes a casing can be judged unfit for retreading and rejected.

If the casing passes all these tests it progresses to an automated buffing machine that grinds off the original tread and accurately profiles the casing for retreading.

At this point there’s yet another inspection, after which any remaining damage is treated.

The next step is application of Bandag’s unique bonding-rubber ‘cushion’ to the casing. This slightly ‘tacky’ coating is optimised for adhesion to the new tread.

Tread application is done by an operator on a building machine that calculates and pre-cuts the correct tread length for that particular casing. The operator ensures correctly aligned fitment, before sticking the tread ends together and stapling the spliced joint in place.

The now-assembled retreaded tyre is fitted into an elastic, rubber ‘envelope’, with bead locking rings and an air valve. A vacuum pump sucks air from the envelope, tightly pressing the tread in place, before the tyre enters an autoclave, for curing.

Some hours of moderate heat-soaking later the finished Bandag tyre is given a unique identification number that’s recorded at the factory and marked on the inside of the casing.

At the same time a letter is ground off the tyre brand name, signifying that it’s been retreaded: the number of ground-off letters shows the number of times the casing has been retreaded.

Multiple retread operations on a single tyre casing are common and lighter duty tyres often have five or more Bandag retreads fitted.

Some critics of retreading cite the number of failed tyres on the nation’s roadsides, but as a grizzled Bandag employee told me years ago: “If you can see any carcase wire in those blown-out tyres, don’t blame a retread, because there’s no wire in a tread!”

Bandag is so confident of its quality and reliability that the product is backed by an unmatched ‘Bandag Assurance Warranty’. This not only covers the replacement of the retread, but also any damage to a vehicle caused by the highly unlikely event of a retread failure.