Category: adhesives

We are persuading our customers to “see red” literally. The Ultra-Red™ fluorescing technology built into many Dymax adhesives offers assemblers concrete advantages in plastics fabrication. Many plastics naturally fluoresce blue under UV light – this minimizes the inspection advantages of using blue-fluorescing adhesives in parts assembly. Ultra-Red™ fluorescing adhesives remain naturally clear until exposed to […]

A question from the DYMAX blog: We have to manufacture a component which is comprised of two individual parts molded from acrylic (PMMA) that have slightly different additives. The parts have concave and convex surfaces which fit onto each other. We want optical coupling between these two surfaces. Can we place one piece as an […]

In September 2009, DPA (Design Products & Applications magazine) will celebrate the start of its thirtieth year of publishing with a special Anniversary Issue. Over this period of thirty years they have seen extraordinary leaps in technology that have quite simply changed the way we live – the personal computer, mobile telephony and the Internet, […]

It takes longer to read this sentence than it does to cure DYMAX adhesives. That’s the message from a new range of Dymax advertisements – this one is aimed at plastic bonding. Typical plastic adhesive applications include appliance assembly, automotive sub-assemblies, headlamp assembly, plastic component tacking and sealing, potting, fixturing and ruggedising plastic housings, high-end displays […]

That’s the promise of a free webinar from our sales partners Dymax. I am excited by the use of the web for this kind of information sharing. Taking place tomorrow, it is a little late for most UK-based workers, but I will be there.

Baroness Carrie von Reichardt and her partner were asked by the Mutoid Waste Co to be involved in a show called Mutate Britain, where a number of well-known artists where each given pieces of a WW2 war plane and asked to let their creative juices flow. Explained the Baroness: We were actually given two panels […]

Dyson relies on Araldite® 2000 PLUS adhesives in its leading-edge vacuum cleaners and hand dryers. In Dyson vacuums, which use Cyclone Technology™ to separate dirt and dust from the air using high centrifugal forces, Araldite adhesives bond together core parts of the cyclone system that gives Dyson vacuums their superior cleaning power. Having tested Araldite […]

In support of our THINKY Mixing and Vacuum Degassing Machines, we have added a new Technical Bulletin detailing the potential advantages with adding vacuum to the rotation and revolution mixing action of our very popular THINKY ARE-250. One of the issues with manual degassing (placing the material in a chamber and applying vacuum, often multiple […]

James Kent (Ceramic Materials) Ltd had relied for many years on a manual mixing system for their research and quality control of specialist glass powders, but embarked on a search for a process solution that would be more effective, more consistent, quicker and simpler. The glass powders produced by James Kent Ltd are tailored to […]

Yes indeed, we found that they do nail horses’ shoes – but in the process of custom fitting each shoe a farrier will generate a lot of impact energy on his anvil – not only does this cause the ear damaging “ringing” sound but also generates a potentially damaging reflective shock wave up the hammer […]

Our sales partners DYMAX have created See-Cure technology as a visual indicator for their UV cure adhesives by colour changing from original blue to clear during the curing process. This innovative approach greatly aids industrial assembly processes, whether the application is medical, electronic, aerospace or automotive. In each case it is essential to know that […]

We have been asked about LED-based curing lamps for some years. The advantages which have resulted from the recognisable use of LEDs in traffic lights and car headlamps may also be true for industrial curing applications. LED outputs are consistent and have good longevity – and their use usually saves money. However, the technology has […]

You probably already know that products from Araldite can be found in almost all areas of life. But it may come as a bit of a surprise to you that products made of our advanced materials can also enhance your personal glamor. Working closely with Swarovski, the Austria-based manufacturer of crystal jewelry, Huntsman has again […]

We are pleased to announce a significant new range of professional grade cyanoacrylate “instant” adhesives – superior quality, high purity single part adhesives which have numerous applications in all aspects of high technology, high performance assembly. Curing at room temperature in seconds, they provide excellent bond strength on a wide range of similar and dissimilar […]

World renowned clocks have been made in Derby since the mid-1700’s, when clockmaker John Whithurst entertained his friends Benjamin Franklin and Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) at his house in Queen Street. So, when the Finesse Collection of hotels were planning the reception area of their new boutique hotel in the town it was […]

Our Sales Partners Dymax have been busy building special websites for some of their latest leading edge products. Check out: www.dual-cure.com UV and moisture cure conformal coating   www.seeitcure.com Colour change on cure – a great innovation in process control   www.ultraredadhesive.com Strong, red fluorescence for quality control   These are exciting new resources for […]

We have just updated our DYMAX Medical Device UV Curing Adhesives webpage to offer the latest version of their selector guide – it’s a download from there. Dymax are announcing some really exciting developments in this field (more to come soon!). Ultra-Red® Fluorescing Technology is one. Once assembled and cured, DYMAX UV curable adhesives are […]

Optics and packaging are playing an ever more important role when designing LED-based products which are both efficient and maintain performance over long periods of time. Silicone elastomers have proven themselves to be versatile in solving a variety of design and production issues. These include Optically Clear Encapsulants, a range of gels with differing cure […]

The problem involved a painted steel substrate, hand placed glass/ceramic tiles, substrate flexing and widely varying vibration over extended periods in outdoor conditions – in short a Tiki Love Truck! An unusual project even for us, but nonetheless as it proved, well within the capabilities of the adhere IRS 2125 Flexible Epoxy Adhesive. The project […]

How to make a good adhesive bond? There are many factors to take into account beyond selecting the optimal adhesive, including joint design and application process. We have a Users Guide to Adhesives which tackles some of these key topics, which you are welcome to download. Surface preparation is one of those key topics. We […]

Download the complete DYMAX Electronics Adhesives, Coatings & Encapsulants Selector Guide (548Kb pdf).

It’s been a flurry of activity here for the last few weeks – we have been very pleased to be a part of the launch of the new Araldite 2000 PLUS range of structural engineering adhesives. There was a global launch in Barcelona earlier in the month, a very impressive affair organised with supreme professionalism […]

A common requirement popped up again last week – the need to quickly tamperproof some enclosure screws with something which is visible and pretty permanent. Manufacturers want to do this to prevent casual tampering with the innards of their products. Another application is the fixing of the screws of adjustable components, like variable resistors or […]

Our expertise through the adhere program is becoming well known. Sometimes, we get thrown some interesting (if not always profitable!) questions: I was wondering if it would be possible for you to settle a heated discussion. In which area of the aerospace industry are adhesives used? Is it only composite materials? Or is it also […]

That is the question which was asked recently by our Sales Partners Dymax, in an advertisement introducing a new product in their range of adhesives for disposable medical devices, Dymax MD® 1161-M. The text is possibly too small to read in this reproduction for the blog, but it goes like this: Design engineers strive to […]

We have just updated our Technical Bulletins & Articles page to include a downloadable copy of a very useful overview guide to adhesives. The guide sets out to remove the reservations that engineers sometimes have about adhesives. It includes a survey of modern adhesives and shows how joints should be designed and pre-treated in order […]

An aluminium speedboat, built by the Dutch company Silvestris Haute Motive Concepts, is making use of structural bonding technology from Huntsman Advanced Materials. Martin de Bruijn, a designer at Silvestris, reveals that the design practices and lightweight materials used mean that the 23-foot boat weighs just 1500kg. The light weight is based on an aluminium […]

Removing air bubbles from materials like epoxies and inks which you mix up yourself can be an irritation. Often some form of vacuum chamber is used to degas the mixture – it is time consuming and not easy! One of the advantages of our Thinky ARE-250 Mixer is that it does not put air into […]

Real World engineering is rarely rocket science, but often it is very much about pushing the boundaries of performance and balancing conflicting parameters. This was exactly the kind of situation which we met when a customer asked our advice on an adhesive application. This unusually challenging application was in the production of very high power […]

Our sales partners, Dymax Corp, have released a new application bulletin about our range of UV adhesives for laminating applications in LCD screens, monitors, outdoor kiosks and navigation systems. This range sticks glass to glass, glass to plastic, and plastic to plastic – with clear, bubble-free bonds. There is a range of products detailed, both […]

It was exciting to receive e-mail from a satisfied customer: My order for optical epoxy Opti-tec 5013 arrived. I used it over the past two days to repair an exhibit-quality quartz specimen that had been damaged. It set quickly, so I was able to leave the specimen in a small sand-box for support as it […]

We have many customers who bond acrylic (PMMA) parts together to make display cabinets or point of sale structures. One way of doing this is to use a solvent based adhesive, but these often give cloudy or untidy joints. In an industry where cosmetic aesthetics is important (like selling cosmetics!), a clear and structurally secure […]

We sell a lot of UV adhesives for glass bonding – this application is perfect for UV curing, and we have a lot of capability. Sometimes, our customers need another solution. For example, they might not have a UV curing lamp, and the production volumes do not justify a purchase at this stage. In these […]

Kapton has become a proprietary eponym… a brand name which has taken on a more general meaning, going beyond the brand. Hoover, for example, is a brand of vacuum cleaner, yet the word is used today to refer to vacuum cleaners of any brand. Spam, a product and trademark of Hormel Foods Corp for its […]

This is the title of a new technical article which I have just put up on our Technical bulletins & articles page. It was written by Nicole Langer, who is the Adhesives Technology Manager with our sales partners, DYMAX Corp. Nicole gives a very good overview of the standard types of structural adhesives which are […]