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How to optimize the hot melt gluing with FELIX GLUER

Hot melt gluing can be even more efficient – with the right toolset.

Blog

August 20, 2024

Hot melt gluing efficiency increase can be easily achieved in industries such as POS Display.

Hot melt adhesives are widely utilized in packaging and printing industries due to their versatility, high performance and resistance, creating strong bonds with quick setting time for a wide range of substrates, even in harsh environments. However, cost efficiency is not always considered a strong point of HMAs, as high operation costs and energy consumption will certainly lead to a question – how to optimize the hot melt gluing?

There are a number of ways to boost your HMA gluing efficiency and in this article, we will focus on two of them, which are hot melt dotting and using both HMA and cold glue together.

Hot Melt Dotting

Hot melt dotting, also called stitching, is a technique used by industry professionals to greatly reduce the amount of applied adhesive, resulting in a much lower operational cost. The glue usage reduction can vary between 40 to 60 percent and can be achieved by replacing a continuous line of hot melt adhesive with a series of dots or lines. Such an approach not only does not weaken the quality of bonding, but in some cases makes it stronger, as faulty applied, long adhesive lines may actually break easily.
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As much as it sounds extremely straightforward, there are some requirements that have to be considered. First of all and most importantly – you need to possess a CNC gluing machine that can be programmed to deliver an appropriate output. In the case of FELIX GLUER, every single one of our glue plotters is equipped with FG : PRO, a robust CAD software that manages both the design process and the glue application. Selecting the “Intermittent flow” option in the glue head configuration menu is one of many options that allow you to customize the way glue paths are created.
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Another critical requirement is a glue head capable of applying adhesive in a specific manner that provides a control over glue flow and glue application. Again, FELIX GLUER plotters come with broad configuration options for gluing heads, with basically any of available head sets and nozzles allowing the application of either dots or microdots.

The glue usage reduction can vary between 40 to 60 percent and can be achieved by replacing a continuous line of hot melt adhesive with a series of dots or lines. Such an approach not only does not weaken the quality of bonding, but in some cases makes it stronger, as faulty applied, long adhesive lines may actually break easily.

Hot Melt and Cold Glue Synergy

Using HMA together with water-based adhesives is another technique that should rapidly boost your hot melt gluing efficiency depending on what substrate you are using. While water-based adhesives, like polyvinyl acetate, are still not that frequently used in POS-Display production, many strength tests conducted together with our client-base prove that a combination of hot melt and cold glue can be actually beneficial to both bonding quality and cost efficiency.

Cold adhesives that use water as the main solvent (hence their other name, water-based adhesives) have a higher cohesion index than hot melt adhesives, making them a great solution for gluing projects where low water exposure is expected. In particular, using cold glue in combination with hot melt removes some of disadvantages of both adhesive types, creating a stronger connection on substrates that require an additional resilience against difficult environmental conditions as well as a quick hand-off between gluing and the assembly phase. Using dedicated gluing systems for FELIX GLUER plotters, you can apply HMA together with cold glue on each glued element at the same time.
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Another important factor is the price range – water-based adhesives are more than twice as cheap as their hot melt counterparts. With this in mind, you can quite easily calculate projected savings for projects that would include a combination of hot melts and cold glues.
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Choosing bespoke gluing solutions

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The efficiency of the provided technique always depends on the substrate type and type of hot melt and water-based adhesives used, so it is worth verifying the characteristics of each adhesive. For example, for POS gluing it is more efficient to use water-based adhesives to finish internal elements, such as shelves, with PVA or similar polymer.
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At FELIX GLUER, we always provide an extensive gluing audit and material testing for our new clients to better understand their workflows and specific needs. This also takes into account an in-depth analysis of available adhesives for a particular gluing project – we conduct it with our own adhesive portfolio that includes both hot melt adhesives (FG : MELT series) and water-based ones (FG : TACK series). This way, you can be certain that your production will run flawlessly using an automated gluing machine system – with an added bonus of huge cost efficiency improvements.
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Would you like to know more about our gluing solutions? Visit the dedicated page on our website, or simply get in touch with our team.

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