in a concentrated area the concentrated area is brought to the melt point and bonded together while traversing down the tube without the following belt the seal would tend to be pulled apart by the friction forces acting on the film while moving and without the small cross section pressure would be transferred to an area too large to allow the seal to bond before product enters the package and pulling the seal apart the result is the provision of an apparatus for use in vertical form fill seal machines that enables unsupported packaging film such as low density polyethylene linear low density polyethylene and high density polyethylene to be sealed into a tube in the process of making a flexible package the device that attaches to the forming tube or forming collar assembly that functions as a seal support as the seam is being welded or bonded contact ridge assembly 53 includes contact ridge 54 and compliant material 55 the polyethylene film 5 is conventional and the type of flat overlap seam configuration is likewise conventional it should be understood that this technology could also be used for non poly applications the forming tube assembly is generally conventional except to the extent that a particular mount may be used to mount the moving support 50 thereto the band seal assembly 30 is conventional and includes a base 31 see e g fig2 a heat is provided from the base 31 to the endless sealing band 32 as needed generally described the moving support apparatus provides a following belt 60 which u201c idles.