Hot Melt News Articles

The staff at Glue Machinery Corporation periodically releases articles covering new products, unique product uses, and product demonstrations with pictures and videos.

Three Strikes? Graco’s Invisipac Mistake

This entry was posted in Packaging, Industries, Uncategorized, Articles on by .

Why does Graco continue to make mistakes regarding hot melt machinery used in the packaging industry?

Their latest mistake is the InvisiPac hot melt system. Graco looked at technology offered with the Invisipac, thought it was “disruptive” and ran with it thinking that their machinery would be embraced by all in the packaging industry.

They could not have been more wrong.

This InvisiPac hot melt machine was designed with the extruder concept in mind using a very small hot melt tank to minimize the temperature exposure of hot melt adhesive. Graco called this technology “tankless,” which is untrue as it has a small high-powered reservoir.

While their concept was good, Graco did not see the coming of higher quality, low-cost hot melt adhesives that resist degradation in conventional hot melt reservoirs.

Please note that Nordson tried the same concept simultaneously with the Freedom Tankless system and backed away from it quickly when they saw that the market was not embracing the product.

Hot melt systems with tanks or reservoirs are the machines of choice in the industry. They will continue to be as they are simple, reliable and economical.

Turning back to Graco and its attempts to make inroads into the hot melt machinery industry, the company has a history of failed attempts. For instance, Graco partnered with Viking, a company with an off-brand hot melt machinery  10 years ago to offer the Titan hot melt machines. These Titan machines had severe limitations and were of low quality. Graco would go onto to abandon the Viking/Titan partnership and product line, leaving many of their customers completely unsupported.

An additional example is when over 30 years ago Graco purchased a quality manufacturer of hot melt machinery called LTI. They quickly updated the product lines offered and made an attempt at taking away market share from Nordson. Even with reasonably good products, they realized that they could not quickly overtake the hot melt machinery industry and sold the company to ITW in 1992.

With their latest offering, InvisiPac, we wonder what Graco’s next foray into the hot melt machinery business will be?

All we have to say is, “Buyer beware” when it comes to smaller hot melt machines from Graco.

December Glue Talk

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December-Glue-Talk

At Glue Machinery Corporation, we understand the world of industrial adhesives can be daunting. Many of our customers ask adhesive-related questions ranging from requests for product overviews to seeking industry best practices. We want to this information with you through our monthly content series, Glue Talk: Answers to Your Questions About All Things Adhesive.

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November Glue Talk

This entry was posted in Glue Talk, Articles on by .

At Glue Machinery Corporation, we understand the world of industrial adhesives can seem daunting, prompting our customers to send us questions about problems they’d like answers to. These problems range from requests for product overviews to seeking industry best practices. Rather than keep all this information to ourselves, we thought, “Let’s do our Glue Diligence®” and share it with you through our monthly content series, Glue Talk: Answers to Your Questions About All Things Adhesive.

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Glue Machinery Hot Coat™ & Datco Basic Roll Series Comparison

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Hot Melt Roll Coaters are used to apply thermoplastic resin to the bottom of materials manually drawn over the roller.

We thought it would be important to offer a comparison between the Glue Machinery Hot Coat™ hot melt roll coater and the Datco Basic Roll Series hot melt rollcoater and let you decide which machine you want in your industrial
application as there are stark differences.

Hot Coat™ 7 Hot Melt Roll Coater

Glue Machinery Corporation Hot Coat 7 Hot Melt Rollcoater

 

 

 

 

 

 

Datco Basic Roll Series

 

 

 

 

 

How These Products Compare

  • The Hot Coat™ is much more ergonomic that the Datco Basic Roll Series as the roller is easily accessible from all sides
  • The Hot Coat™ offers much more precise glue patterns for higher quality production than the Datco Basic Roll Series
  • The Hot Coat™ is a much more durable with oversized variable speed drive motor requiring far less maintenance than the Datco Basic Roll Series
  • The Hot Coat™ is a much safer unit than the Datco Basic Roll Series as the majority of the heated surfaces are under insulated steel panels

Why the Hot Coat™ 7 Hot Melt Roll Coater Excels Over the Datco Roll Series:

  • The Hot Coat™ footprint is much smaller as the motor is under the roller
  • It’s a heated roller vs. a non-heated roller
  • Has a variable speed drive vs. a constant speed drive
  • Is a 95 lb machine vs. a 40 lb machine
  • Has a large drive motor vs. a small drive motor
  • Has a 5-10 lb per hour melt rate vs. a less than 5 lb per hour melt rate
  • Capable of micrometer adjustable coating vs. fixed doctor blade with limited adjustably
  • Possesses a small footprint vs. Large footprint
  • Has a metal housing over insulation vs. exposed hot surfaces with a cheap insulation blanket
  • Contains two heated zones vs. one heat zone
  • Is fast heating vs. very slow heating to temperature

October Glue Talk

This entry was posted in Glue Talk, Articles on by .

At Glue Machinery Corporation we understand that navigating the world of industrial adhesives can seem daunting, prompting our customers to send us questions about problems they’re working on solving. These problems range from requests for product overviews to needing advice on industry best practices. Rather than keep all this information to ourselves, we thought, “Let’s do our Glue Diligence®!” Therefore, we’re excited to introduce our new monthly content series, Glue Talk: Answers to Your Questions About All Things Adhesive, that will frequently asked questions we’ve received and our responses.

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