Another “Win-Win”
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Sometimes opportunities arise in unexpected ways. Over a year ago, HAR launched our new HARnet ordering system to process customer orders online. One of the key benefits from this system is that our customers can now automatically receive electronic order confirmations and shipping confirmations. As a sales rep, I receive their notifications via email too so that I can ensure the product is correct and delivery is on time.
After receiving an email that one of my customers placed an order, I gave him a call to thank him. This led to a conversation on pricing and shipping. He noted his other adhesive supplier had just given him an unexpected price increase but had not received the product yet. I checked and our price was lower, so he canceled the order with the other supplier and added it to his existing order with us.
I am so thankful to always know when a customer order has been placed and shipped. This awareness has led to better customer service. And my customer was thankful too because his company save over $800 in the process and was able to get their order delivered in two days!
Padding Compound & Model Rockets
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I’m a mom of two school-age boys and, as most boys do, they love model rockets. Actually, anything that blasts a string of fire and shoots hundreds of feet into the air is cool no matter who you are.
Every year our family gets together for a “Rocket Party” in the grandparents’ big back yard. We spend the day eating, launching rockets and then go hunting in the woods to try and find them. Most don’t survive the fall, some are hidden in the woods forever, but we view both as good outcomes. That means we get to build more rockets for next year’s party. So it brought a big smile to my face when a long-time customer of ours, Everett Stowe of Apple Printing Co., recently sent us an email thanking us for a great product.
He writes “I’ve been in the printing industry since 1979 and have used your HAR Adhesive Technologies ‘Padding Compound’ for many years. I just thought you might want to see what I’ve been using your padding compound for lately.
In the past three years, I’ve been scratch building model rockets by laminating double thick paper using your padding compound. The entire airframe is built using your padding compound. My latest rocket is a 14 foot tall Saturn V. It is 16 inches in diameter and weighs in at approximately 58 pounds with the motors installed.”
With that he went on to state, “I just thought you might like to know…Thank you for a great product.”
With a new appreciation of our padding compound and the ingenuity of Everett, that puts a whole new dimension for this year’s Rocket Party. We will scrap building model rockets from kits and start constructing our own using HAR adhesives, albeit on a much smaller scale!
Thank you, Everett, for sharing your impressive rocket and innovative use of our padding compound. We appreciate your loyalty and my sons are really excited to build their model rockets this year.
Going Green to Save Money
By · CommentsInterested in going green or, at least, a little greener? We can almost guarantee that any toxic or highly flammable adhesive you are currently using has a more environmentally-friendly and safer adhesive counterpart that is just as effective. The added bonus is that non-toxic adhesives generally cost a lot less too!
One of our latest endeavors is working with a company who makes medical devices for military. They were using silicone-based contact cement to bond aluminum and polyethylene foam. We recommended pressure sensitive hot melt—it’s water-based so it’s safer and environmentally friendly. Using this hot melt, they have lowered production costs because not only is it cheaper than the silicone-based glue but it has a faster set (drying) time…The earth will thank you, and so will your bottom line!
Sustainable Solutions for the Packaging Industry
By · CommentsIn any industry sustainability is a top concern. Sustainability includes customer longevity, minimizing the ecological impact, and long-term commercial viability. For the packaging industry, you need not look any further than H.B. Fuller’s Advantra adhesives. These adhesives provide superior performance at the lowest overall adhesive cost of any hot melt on the market today.
H.B. Fuller explains in one of their latest blogs “Advantra adhesives can potentially impact reduction goals for energy, waste, and packaging materials while allowing an increased percentage of recycled content and improving downstream recycling efficiency. Often these goals can be addressed with little or no capital expenditure for our customers, while reducing total costs…” Click here to read their complete blog post.
HAR carries the full line of Advantra adhesives. For a list of applications and key benefits, please visit our Advantra™ web page at http://www.haradhesive.com/Advantra.html or call us at 440-786-7185.
Polyamide: A Superior Hot Melt Adhesive
By · CommentsHave a specialty application that needs a superior glue? You may want to consider polyamide hot melts. They are very high temperature resistant hot melts that provide aggressive bonds to most any hard to bond materials.
What’s really remarkable about polyamide hot melts is they have excellent chemical, oil and high heat resistance, making them a great choice for difficult exposure environments and for many difficult to bond, low energy substrates. Applications are many and they are a great choice for automotive assembly, telecommunications, transportation filters, packaging, electrical components, and product or wood assembly. These unique hot melt adhesives are available in several degrees of peel strength, tack, open-time, shear strength and viscosity.
Here are some more details of our polyamide hot melt adhesives that may be just right for your specialty application:
• Green strength development to minimize assembly time and time to handling.
• Flexible open-times from 2 seconds to 2 minutes of working time.
• Broad adhesion range including paper, wood, metals, plastics and plasticized PVC.
• High strength for most high performance applications.
• Great option for high heat and low temperature resistance applications.
• Great chemical resistance for exposure to grease, oils, plasticizers, hydraulic fluids, acids and alkalis.
Call me directly at 440-220-0115 to see how polyamide hot melt adhesives can benefit your production operations.
From Automotive to Woodworking
By · CommentsI’ve written in the past about how every industry (and every home, for that matter) uses adhesive. On our web site, we list a broad overview of what types of businesses use our adhesives—packaging, paper, product assembly, woodworking, etc. But if you’re at all curious like I was about what actual industries are buying our glue, I started to look at our list of customers and was quite surprised at how many industries we serve. While the list would be in the hundreds, here’s a brief list supplied by one of our Technical Sales Representatives, Scott Lepard. Thanks Scott!
• Automotive Assembly
• Board Games
• Book Binding
• Bulletin Boards
• Business Forms
• Cap Lining
• Carton Sealing
• Container Labeling
• Credit Card Attachment
• Display/Instrument Cases
• Doors & Window
• Drum Gaskets
• Dry Erase Boards
• Envelopes
• Flexible Ducts
• Flexible Packaging
• Foam Fabrication
• Folder Gluing
• Frozen Food Packaging
• High Pressure Hoses
• Ice Cream Cone Wrappers
• Insulation
• Kitchen Cabinets
• Labels
• Laminating
• Mailers
• Mattresses
• Medical Supplies
• Mouse/Insect Traps
• Padding
• Paper Tubes
• Passports
• Pharmaceuticals
• Prefabricated Walls
• Sandpaper/Abrasives
• Scrapbooking Supplies
• Tapes
• Woodworking
Shipping “Freezable Glue”
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Winter is here! As the temperature drops and the snowflakes fall, we may think of the holidays, sledding, skiing, a warm fire or even getting away to a warmer climate. How many of us think about glue? If you said yes, you are either a glue sales representative or need to get a life!
Seriously, if you order, use, or ship glue in the cold months, you SHOULD be thinking about it! While hot melts are mostly immune to colder temperatures, water based products are very sensitive to the cold. Since most water actually freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit your water base glue will too.
But what if your glue arrives frozen? Just let it thaw? It’s not an option! Once water based glue freezes, it’s pretty much a goner. Emulsion adhesives, contain very, very tiny glue solids which are suspended by a “protective colloid.” This protection keeps the particles, which are heavier than water, suspended in the water and keeps them from settling to the bottom of the container. When the glue is frozen, the particles clump together and/or fall to the bottom. Sadly, the glue with all those clumps will never be able to stick anything together. You now have a container of useless product.
So how do you know if a product is frozen? It’s not always easy. The first thing you need to do is to open the container and do an inspection. If you see lumps floating on the top (looks like cottage cheese), ice crystals, or even worse, a solid, it has been frozen. Feel the outside of the container. If it feels very cold, all the more reason to inspect the liquid itself. Get yourself a thermometer and keep it in your receiving department. That way you can determine the actual temperature when you took it off the truck. This won’t be the absolute determination whether it was frozen or not, but if it comes in at 55 degrees or higher, you can probably feel safe that the product is good.
Another quick check is to see when the product was actually shipped. If you buy in a tote tank or 55 gallon drum, the adhesive has a lot of internal heat. That helps to keep it from freezing. So, short overnight trips typically are not an issue. However, if the glue has been on the road for several days, be very cautious and check the adhesive thoroughly. If your glue left from Ohio on Monday and arrived at your facility in Ohio on Friday, you may have a problem – especially if the weather was very cold. That’s why we never ship water base products on a Friday in winter months. If we did, the glue would sit in a truck for two to three days and if the weather is cold enough, freezing would occur.
In winter months we always require that freight companies who haul our “freezable” products protect them from being frozen. When they accept and sign for pails, drums or totes, they guarantee that the material will arrive at your location in good condition. If the product does freeze, the shipping company is responsible.
If you ever suspect that a shipment of water based glue has been frozen, be sure to call us at 440-786-7185 immediately. We can help you make a determination whether you should accept or reject the product.
Adhesives: The Backbone in Woodworking
By · CommentsWhen it comes to working with wood, HAR has partnered with two of the most effective and comprehensive adhesive manufacturers in the world: H.B. Fuller and 3M to provide state-of-the-art adhesive technologies. Coupled with a deep understanding of innovative processes, we work with our customers to meet their cost, production and quality requirements.
Depending on the wood substrates and application processes, HAR has every type of adhesive ever needed! Our distribution line includes reactive hot melts, EVAs, polyamides and polyurethane adhesives, water-based formulations, epoxies, acrylics, urethane adhesives, industrial tapes, and cylinder and aerosol spray adhesives.
Applications for these adhesives are limitless, from panel manufacturing to edge banding to structural support and more. Our web site provides more details on the brands and industries we serve at www.haradhesives.com including…
- Finishing- for the bonding of wood, particle board or other edging for countertops, cabinets, shelves, furniture or in construction.
- Assembly- for adhesive systems that add structural benefits with the additional set speed that is ideal for a variety of wood assembly applications.
- Foam and Upholstery- for quickly and securely bonding flexible foams to themselves or other materials including wood for construction, cabinetry, furniture and much more.
Whether you need adhesives for millwork, furniture, or cabinetry, HAR can provide high quality, low cost, and sustainable options for your production needs. For more information on the products we offer and customized solutions we provide, give us a call at 440-786-7815.
Three Adhesive Myth Busters
By · CommentsHere’s a few common misconceptions about the properties of adhesives (otherwise known as glue)…
Myth#1: If the adhesive is thicker it yields a stronger and faster bond. The truth is that viscosity or thickness is unrelated to the quality, strength or speed of drying time.
Myth #2: The type of adhesive determines the drying time. This is partly true. While each adhesive does dry at different speeds, the type of adhesive is only one of the factors of how fast it dries. Much like paint, heat and humidity as well as the material (i.e. substrate) the adhesive is applied to matters how fast it will dry. Therefore, actual dry time can only be estimated based on these various factors.
Myth #3: If the adhesive isn’t bonding, add more. This is completely false. You should always use as little adhesive possible for the most effective bond. If it still isn’t working, you need a different adhesive!
The Diversity of Padding Adhesives
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Did you know that there is more to padding adhesives then just sticking paper together? These adhesives have different applications, strengths, bonds, thicknesses and even colors. Most are, however, all water-based adhesives and used specifically for bonding paper to form notepads and business forms.
The standard variations include padding cement, quick pad, and fan-apart. Hot melts are also used for some padding applications including thermal binding. Still other formulations have been developed for collating, mailing, paper tipping and more. Our particular padding adhesives are sold to well-known paper merchants who then distribute to printers and bookbinders across the world.
To adhere these padding adhesives to paper, padding presses are often used. The press clamps a stack of papers together and the adhesive gets brushed on with a padding brush. We happen to manufacture the very popular (in the paper world, at least) ChamPADco brand of padding presses to do just that.
Here is a list of the various types of padding adhesives we formulate and distribute:
- Padding cement. A versatile and flexible water-based resin for padding and general bookbinding that will not crack, chip or flake. Long shelf life and freeze resistance. Stocked in various colors.
- Quick Pad Adhesive. A thick formulation that dries in five minutes, generally needing only one coat. Will bind any paper stock to vinyl, plastics, textiles and leather.
- Universal fan-apart. For carbonless paper designed to work with NCR/Appleton and Mead sheet stock.
- Paste for printers. Mailer paste for standard mailing machines; folder paste for folding machines; label paste for labeling cartons or glass by hand; and make-ready paste for tissue and enameled stock.
- Carbon interleaved sets. For collating and open trough machines.
- Printer’s specialty adhesives. For film to paper tipping that adheres to polyester and rigid PVC and, of course, paper stock.
- EVA hot melts. For deep penetrating padding or for mailers with highly enameled, varnished and heavily coated stocks.
If your business is interested to learn more about the versatility and reliability of our padding adhesives, please give us a call at 440-786-7185 and our Customer Support team will be happy to assist you!
