We stick urban art together

Modern art is such an integral part of life, the interweb and everything, that some exciting projects are taking place – perhaps where they always have – at the borders between the street and the gallery. So it is even more interesting to find this kind of project dependant upon an advanced flexible epoxy adhesive such as IRS 2125.

Our story begins with The Baroness working over the summer with the Single Homeless Project at their suburban art workshops, involved with young, homeless and vulnerable people. Together with other artists, the group produced a body of work that was exhibited at the Signal Gallery. The main piece produced by The Baroness was a VW bonnet in mosaicked ceramic with our IRS 2125. As The Baroness explains:

Since I have used this glue before I am entirely confident of its strength and flexibility which are important factors in large artworks that are moved around a lot. This piece was inspired by my time at the Urban Arts Project and used facial imagery from these workshops.

A Vauxhall bonnet was also mosaicked by the group as a co-operative exercise. At the end of the project and to celebrate the success of it, the SHP organized a one-day event called Artival after which the VW bonnet itself went on display at the new Mutate Britain Exhibition as part of their One Foot in the Grove presentation.

And so our story ends with a high performance 2 part epoxy adhesive – originally developed for cable harness assemblies, wiring, cable joints, terminations, electronics, structural bonding and downhole/oil well operations – now decorating one of London’s fast growing gallery venues. As a user footnote we return to The Baroness, who was delighted with the convenience and usability of IRS 2125

I had around 10 50gram cartridges which were easily applied with standard nozzles – workability and setting times were brilliant!

Article published: The Cure

We have an article published in FAST magazine, out today.

Entitled Getting Stuck on Adhesives, we answer frequently asked questions about the curing of adhesives used in structural bonding.

Ask us for a copy; or ask for a subscription to the magazine!

Clear, fast plastic bonder... including acrylic!

Araldite 2028 adhesive is a fast setting, transparent, two-part polyurethane adhesive. What makes this adhesive different is that it is both transparent and UV stable, as well as flexible and fast curing.

Araldite 2028 bonds wide varieties of plastics including polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polycarbonate (PC). Tailor made for seismic cables and cable assemblies, as well as general industrial applications.

Araldite 2028 will find many applications in bonding acrylic sheets and parts; it is clear and quick to cure, so our customers making point-of-sale (POS) displays and signs/signage will find it invaluable.

Get tough - making electronics rugged

We are getting tough with electronic components that need to be made more rugged – to be more resistant to shock, vibration and rough handling. This “toughening-up” process involves edge bonding or underfill of components with the recently introduced DYMAX 9422-SC or DYMAX 9-20790 room temperature, fast, light cure adhesives.

In particular the DYMAX 9422-SC is a component reinforcement and staking material engineered to hold critical components, such as Ball Grid Arrays (BGA) and Video Graphic Arrays (VGA), for secondary processes or for long-term reliability. These light-curable adhesives dispense and cure in seconds to provide the optimal balance of production efficiency and technical performance. This will be of interest to anyone confronted with the need to ensure that critical components on printed circuit boards remain in place and with electrical integrity throughout the manufacturing, assembly qualification and service environment for the duration of a product lifecycle. Light curing adhesives dispense and cure in seconds to provide the optimal balance of production efficiency and technical performance with bead shape designed to wet both the board surface and the component edge without seeping into shadowed areas. This material is highly thixotropic for zero movement prior to cure - 9422-SC is halogen and silicone free and RoHS compliant.

The use of BGA edge bonding adhesives or underfills can eliminate leadless component interconnect cracking due to CTE mismatches. Typical applications include mobile phones, PDAs, laptop computers, gaming consoles, GPS computers and digital music players.

DYMAX 9422-SC features See-Cure technology (going from blue when uncured to colourless when cured) and features fast dispense and cure, easy re-work, simple visual inspection and covering in seconds with improved bond strength for die and pry testing.

Sea lion studies with Araldite 2012

Very little is known about the diving behaviour of young sea lions who flourish on the Galapagos islands - which is where Araldite® 2012 comes in. Araldite 2012 was found to be the best adhesive to attach recorders and study repeated dives of sea lions down to 350–500 metres. The adhesive has to withstand the heavy impact of 100kg sea lions rolling, scratching, hitting rocks - not to mention the salt water of the Pacific ocean and the strong sun radiation.

A cooperation between the Galapagos Sea Lion Project, University of Bielefeld, Germany, the National Park Service of Galapagos and the Charles Darwin Research Station, Galapagos, is conducting the project and selected Araldite 2012 to attach time-depth-recorder (TDRs) to the sea lions to ensure that the recorders remained fixed whatever the conditions.

Preliminary results from the ongoing project showed that juvenile Galapagos sea lions dive up to a maximum of 350m, and adult sea lion females up to a maximum of 502m, which is an amazing record and makes the Galapagos sea lion the deepest diving sea lion species. And all of this new insight into sea lions has been made possible because the researchers were able to monitor what was happening with the use of Araldite 2012 and the recorders.

Jana Jeglinski, from the Galapogus Sea Lion project, said:

Araldite 2012 provided reliable deployment and retrieval of our dive recorders. Araldite 2012 ensured that our recorders did not fall off, whatever the depths and conditions, until we wanted to retrieve them which gave us the most wonderful data.

Araldite® 2012 is part of the Araldite® 2000 plus range. It is a fast cure, multi-purpose epoxy adhesive with extremely high toughness, combined with chemical and water/ humidity resistance making it an excellent choice for the sea lion project. Its novel use demanded the maximum performance in very unusual circumstances. It can be used in a wide variety of industrial applications where there is exposure to chemicals and water.

The success of Araldite 2012 in fixing the recorders to the sea lions provides answers about the natural history of the animals, including details such as where they dive and what they feed on which provides valuable implications for the management and conservation of the species.

Five new Araldite structural adhesives launched

We are in the process of bringing into our range five new Araldite structural adhesives, which join the Araldite 2000 Plus line of products. Download the latest Selector Guide to get an introduction to the new adhesives and their capabilities. Maybe you have a bonding application which we can solve?

Latest selector guide for medical device adhesives

Recently, we updated our website with an enhanced version of the comprehensive DYMAX Selector Guide on MD® Adhesives for Medical Device Assembly. This valuable tool contains a number of charts intended to help R&D engineers and product designers choose the appropriate adhesive for their application. All DYMAX MD® Adhesives are biocompatibility tested in accordance with ISO 10993 and/or USP Class VI.

Pages are devoted to specific adhesives for the assembly of catheters and guidewires, injection needles and syringes and respiratory devices. Recently developed products incorporating new technologies such as See-Cure and Ultra-Red fluorescing have been integrated into the guide together with charts, photos and technical information which are presented to simplify and shorten the adhesive selection process and to explain the new technologies.

For the designer with a new or unique disposable-device application, the multi-purpose bonding charts quickly show the range of products available, their technical data, and the various substrates to which they adhere. Most products shown bond well to a number of plastic substrates (including those which are more specialist to the medical field), as well as to dissimilar substrates such as metal, glass and ceramic. While most formulations cure instantly upon exposure to UV/visible light, the line of MEDI-CURE® 222 Series Cyanoacrylates is offered for bonding opaque substrates and for applications where aggressive adhesion to rubber is needed.

On the last page of the guide is a selection of curing and related equipment built to optimize both performance and cost savings. Our Application Engineers can help you match the resin to the appropriate equipment as an aid to simplifying assembly process development and validation.

Ultra-Red Adhesives for high contrast bond-line inspection and product verification

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 UV light, at which point they fluoresce bright red providing a vivid contrast that permits accurate bond-line inspection. The red fluorescence does not absorb the same light energy wavelengths as those used to cure the adhesive, resulting in faster and deeper cures when compared with the same adhesives containing blue fluorescence.

Ultra-Red™ fluorescing technology can also be used by manufacturers for product authentication. By virtue of its patented technology, the red-fluorescing compound is exclusive to DYMAX for use in radiation-cured adhesives and coatings. When measured, this technology produces a distinctly unique energy peak that cannot be reproduced by any other fluorescing compound. This offers manufacturers the ability to assemble or mark their products and be assured that, in the event of a future challenge as to the authenticity of the product’s origins, the products can be positively identified. Ultra-Red™ fluorescing technology is RoHS compliant.

Bonding optical couplets

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 insert and mold the other over it? Is there some other, better method to achieve the same effect?

One common technique to bond couplets together as described is to mold both acrylic lenses separately and then bond them together with an optically clear adhesive. There are optical grades of adhesives that have excellent adhesion to acrylic, are designed to be transparent to most visible wavelengths, possess low shrinkage, stress, and viscosity for easy dispensing and alignment, and then cure uniformly and evenly under the proper light source. The real benefit is that you can optically align the lenses together while the adhesive is wet, and then cure on-demand.

Vote for us!

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, to mention just a few. Manufacturing industry, too, has enjoyed the benefits of remarkable technological advances, and to celebrate this, they have been asking suppliers and manufacturers to nominate products that they believe are representative of these advances for an online ‘virtual’ awards event, which they have dubbed, the DPA 30th Anniversary issue Innovation Awards.

We are really pleased to have our DYMAX See-Cure adhesive technology as an entrant in the Materials & Fasteners section.

Please vote for us!

Hot-melt dispensing

The Thermadose® range of hot-melt adhesive dispensing systems encompass bench mounted tank-style controllers designed to handle pellet, brick and flake hot-melt adhesives in 12, 14 and 34 lb capacities as well as heavier duty 5 gallon and 55 gallon drums. These include a smooth easy-clean heating platen or an optional spiral-grid that increases the surface area and improves heating efficiency and control for high-flow and hard to melt materials. All models are also available in versions to apply non-adhesive substances requiring sterile conditions.

Crossover configurations for constant product flow are offered either as 55/5 gallon or 55/55 gallon configurations with simple to learn controls. When coupled to a range of heavy-duty heated accessories, the tank controller becomes part of a system that can be manually configured, for example, with a hand-gun or interfaced to a robot for fully automatic operation. Each hot-melt tank controller consists of a heated melt tank with an integral heat grid. Tanks are coated with an approved food contact material.

Ergonomic and lightweight balanced dispensing guns have an integrated hanger for suspension hook up and incorporate hot-melt dispensing nozzles for fitting to applicator valves, manifolds and flow heads for swirl assemblies and pattern nozzles.

Electric and air operated applicator valve heads are designed for mounted installation and feature a fast “snap” function solenoid valve with precise needle-and-seat action which produces a clean cut-off to preventing drips, e.g. when using edge dispensing manifold applicators - commonly used in corrugated or folded carton applications to dispense hot-melt in either horizontal or vertical modes. Accessories are available for angled dispensing.

Thermadose® hot-melt pail pump systems are available in 5 gallon and 55 gallon models. Connection is via hoses which incorporate a PTFE core, a reinforced stainless steel braid and high temperature insulation, with a durable polyester braid cover for abrasion resistance. These heated hoses are both electrically and mechanically attached to hot melt controllers via easy access front connector.

UV Cure = Speedy Cure, Fast Cure

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 and jewelry manufacturing, cosmetic household items, and aerospace vibration dampening. These plastic adhesives cure rapidly for high-speed production using either broad spectrum bulb technology or visible light LED technology.

Save 30% on your assembly bonding process

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.

HOT! Hot melt dispensing

Sales partners I&J Fisnar have announced an exciting range of dispensing systems for hot melt adhesives and other thermoplastic systems. The Thermadose range includes bench mounted “tank” style Hot Melt Controllers which are designed to handle pellet, brick and flake adhesives in 12, 14 and 34 lb capacities. Accessories include high grade heated hoses, hand dispensing guns, tip sealing applicator valves, and swirl, shot and bead nozzles.

Bench or floor systems can be simply integrated to any of our dispensing robots.

Download the Thermadose brochure - pdf format (4,634Kb).

Alternative art adhesive

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 and had the only ceramic ones on show. One was called - Love the USA and the other was called Drop knickers, not bombs. One side was straightforward mosaic; the other side had tiles that had been covered in ceramic transfers and re-fired applied. These panels were drilled and hanged on display as part of this five storey show. Not a tile fell off. Rock solid thanks to your wonderful glue.

The adhesive so enthused over by the Baroness was provided us - we were able to fill the technical gap between ceramic tiles and WW2 aircraft panels so that resulting art pieces went together easily and were strong enough to be reliably displayed. Our application engineer suggested IRS 2125 Flexible Epoxy Adhesive with manual dispensing/mixing. IRS 2125 is a high performance black resin system. Its combination of flexibility and high adhesive strength lends itself to many high technology bonding, sealing and insulating applications. A two-part system with a simple 1:1 mix ratio, it is supplied in a convenient side-by-side double syringe cartridge, complete with static mixing nozzles generally used for cable harness assemblies, cable joints and terminations, heat-shrink sealing, electronics and structural bonding - it proved ideal. And not for the first time!

IRS 2125 is an excellent all-purpose adhesive, especially where long-term substrate flexibility is an important factor, giving high shear and peel strength with tough bonds that withstand vibration and flex. It has outstanding chemical and fluid resistance, including moisture, diesel and fuel oils, while being able to bond metal, glass, wood, rubber and many plastics. It will operate at temperatures of up to 150°C and can seal to IP68 for continuous immersion. It is also proven in downhole and oil well operations.

muTATE BRITAIN opened on 20th November 2008 in London’s largest non-corporate art space – a disused warehouse on Curtain Road, Shoreditch, where it provides an environment for emerging contemporary artists to showcase their material.

Dyson Clean and Dry with Araldite 2000+ Adhesives

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 adhesives in some of the most demanding performance trials, Dyson is now using them in its Airblade™ dryer — the fastest, most hygienic and energy-efficient hand dryer on the market.

For the Dyson team, the shape and form of a product should naturally follow on from function. This can mean complex design and manufacturing processes, so adhesives like Araldite, with a bonding solution for almost every sort of engineering plastic in use today, provide the perfect solution for bringing unusual, highly innovative and effective products to life.

Araldite 2021 is a two-component, methacrylate adhesive that ensures bonded parts maintain their strength at operating temperatures and displays excellent adhesion on various thermoset and thermoplastic materials. Araldite 2022 is a two-component, toughened adhesive system based on methacrylate chemistry with a longer open time. Both products are ideal for bonding thermoplastics, like PVC, polycarbonate, and ABS, as well as stainless steel and aluminum materials.

Degassing not foaming

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 times) is that it takes time and attention. Applying too much vacuum can cause the volatiles in the material to "boil" out, and if you are not careful, the material can foam up and even overflow the container.

Any THINKY machine can degas or de-aerate without any danger of this, and automatically too!

This is not a problem if you use a THINKY mixer

Mixing it

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 customer need – primarily for dental fillers and restorers, they vary from 0.5 to 10 microns average particle size. For testing purposes the glass powder needs to be mixed with a high viscosity acrylic resin monomer to check for high transparency and low discolouration – but the manual process, while well understood, continued to give problems of non-homogeneity and air inclusion, both of which preclude colour checking of the glass.

The search for an improved system led Dr Philip Frampton to the Thinky ARE-250, which incorporates both planetary mixing and centrifugal degassing in one unit.

Tests with the Thinky equipment involved mixing 60% glass with 40% acrylic by weight in viscosities varying from “thick honey to stiff bubble gum,” according to Dr Frampton. Empirical investigation supported by our advice rapidly determined suitable program parameters based on viscosity and these samples were then pressed and cured into standard £2 coin sized discs for comparison with established colour standards.

Dr Frampton explained “James Kent are one of probably only 4 or 5 companies in the world operating at the top level in this technology and we were looking to improve the mixing stage as a first step to overall improvement of our glass grinding process. Intertronic’s expertise and supply of the Thinky mixer has allowed us to achieve that initial goal in a single operation – so now we have a reliable quality control process we can move to purchase of a spectro-photometer. This will enable us to refine our operation further toward development of an even cleaner and finer grinding process.”

The mixing of glass and ceramic powders into resins is a perfect job for a Thinky mixer!

They nail horse shoes, don't they?

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 into the farrier’s body and moves the anvil while working. This problem has been recognised for some time and may be addressed by use of a percussive pad placed under the anvil. So when Ian Payne at Hand Made Shoes was looking to manufacture really effective pads he found he needed a high-grade impact resistant adhesive to hold them together. Our answer was Araldite 2040 flexible polyurethane adhesive.

Hand Made Shoes percussive pads consist of two sheets of aluminium sandwiching a 12mm rubber pad with 25mm diameter lead discs held in place by the rubber. Vibration is effectively dampened by deformation of the lead and rubber which absorb different wavelengths of the impact shock. This not only reduces Health and Safety related damage but also greatly reduces the anvil’s tendency to move or “walk” while in use.

Our solution of Araldite 2040 simply involves application of a bead in criss-cross pattern on the aluminium “bread” parts of the sandwich then assembly with the rubber/lead “filling” with gentle overnight pressure to ensure a tough resilient bond.

This quite unusual application does demonstrate the sometimes extreme conditions which modern high performance adhesives can endure. In particular we are very impressed with the way Araldite 2040 has taken this in its stride – for a general purpose polyurethane intended to bond a wide variety of substrates it has performed beyond expectations. Araldite 2040 is well suited for bonding of polycarbonate and polyamides as well as metals, especially where low shrinkage, good flexibility and good gap filling are needed.

And whilst they do nail horse shoes, not always! Araldite 2012 has been used for the bonding of "racing plates" directly onto horses hooves – another high impact application!

adhere - better bonding from intertronics - the movie!

This comes courtesy of our friends at Circuitmart.

See-Cure - to be sure

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 sufficient adhesive has been dispensed and that a full cure is effected – See-Cure colour change technology enables this to be determined at a glance.

Excitingly, the product has been featured on television in the USA, in a segment on Eye on America - have a look!

LED curing a reality

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 been difficult to adapt to UV curing, for a lot of reasons - wavelengths, bandwidth and heat are just some.

Happily, our sales partners DYMAX have been able to come up with an LED lamp which is practical for curing - the BlueWave LED.

This product is not a drop-in replacement for traditional UV curing lamps, but it does have many applications. What is the difference between an LED visible light curing system and a traditional UV light curing system? Find out here.

Making a fashion statement

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 demonstrated the versatility of its Araldite® 2000 PLUS adhesives range, this time in a highly decorative application.

Araldite 2011 high performance adhesive is now being used in the Enlightened™-Swarovski Elements product brand, to enhance the bonding of marcasite stones into a variety of pieces—including rings, earrings, brooches, necklaces and cufflinks. Most of Swarovski's customers now choose Araldite 2011 two component epoxy paste as their preferred adhesive for bonding marcasite stones, as it gives the jewelry an enhanced sparkle. These jewelers set a stunning total of around 500 million marcasite stones each year, worldwide.

Swarovski provides genuine marcasite stones — cut from Pyrite — for their customers, to produce many types of jewelry. By using Araldite 2011, they can even bond stones in the 1-2mm size range. Bonding with Araldite means there are no visible settings on the finished pieces — a feature not possible with traditional setting methods that use prongs and bezels.

An instant classic

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 substrates including rubber, plastics, metal, wood, leather, ceramics, ferrites, stone, cork, glass, composites and paper. The range includes surface-insensitive, fast cure and low odour, low blooming formulations. Cyanoacrylate adhesives (CA’s) are known generically as “superglues” or “instant adhesives” and are extensively used in all manner of industrial applications, but often little understood and may be of extremely variable quality.

Our adhere cyanoacrylate single component systems are fast and easy to use, requiring no mixing or heating, and parts being bonded do not need clamping. They are solvent free. They achieve high tensile and shear strengths. Their high quality formulation and manufacture ensures excellent manufacturing repeatability and high stability – facilitating long shelf life for highly efficient production line use. The range includes a rubber toughened “flexible formulation”, an activator for even faster cures, and a primer which facilitates bonding of difficult to bond plastics such as polypropylene, polyethylene or silicone rubber – even PTFE.

While cyanoacrylates are ubiquitous adhesives we believe they are often taken for granted. It is our aim to raise-the-game of instant adhesives in manufacturing processes. To this end we are also strongly focused on dispensing technologies, whether through 20 or 50 gram integral pin cap HDPE bottles or 500 gram bottles for pressure pot and automated application. We score by offering a complementary complete range of compatible automatic, semi-automatic and manual dispensing systems in-house.

Clock this!

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 natural that they seek out the present day flag carriers of the Whithurst brand. Smith of Derby worked closely with James Blick, the Hotelier, to derive a contemporary design in keeping with the modern refurbishment of their traditional building.

The spectacular design by Kevin Litchfield did however call for some very specialist work. Explains Kevin, “We needed to fit a glass map of the world into a fine stainless steel frame. The two-part adhesive we were using gave us problems so we called the team at INTERTRONICS to discuss a UV cure alternative. Paul Whitehead arrived two hours later and basically did the job there and then.”

Our solution was to use DYMAX 429, which allowed plenty of time to accurately position the one-off and highly expensive components before rapid curing initiated with an IUV 250 UV Curing Flood Lamp. Paul described the situation, “They were having problems getting the joint bubble free using a two-part epoxy – whereas the DYMAX 429 completely eliminated this problem and gave a virtually invisible bond in a matter of minutes.”

Reaction to the finished clock has been extremely positive with its unusual two-part electromechanical construction showing local time in one quadrant and global time in the other. The two elements are actually two separate clocks. One shows local time, indicative to the quarter of an hour. From 12am to 12pm (and vice versa) the hand travels through the quadrant, there are hour and quarter hour markings. As an example, if it is 11:59, the hand would be positioned at the bottom of the quadrant pointing downwards. At 12:00 the hand would travel back through the quadrant.

The second clock depicts world times through 24 zones – or the 24 countries mentioned on the clock itself. The reference point for clock is the UK, and then countries were selected that were an hour apart from the previous one. When looking at the clock the world map travels around and the time can be taken from the dial that surrounds the globe.

This was clearly a unique one-off situation with very expensive components where no mistake could be allowed for – but it was also a valuable learning experience and we understand that Smith of Derby already have another commission with similar requirements and already know the solution – DYMAX 429 UV Curing Glass Adhesive.

New DYMAX information sources

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 exciting new products.

Seeing red

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 usually clear and cosmetically superior.

When adhesives with Ultra-Red fluorescing technology are exposed to "black" UV inspection light (360-380 nm), they fluoresce bright red. The bright red fluorescence contrasts extremely well on plastics that naturally fluoresce blue in color (like PVC), and greatly assists with visual inspection of the bond-line area.

Lots of medical device manufacturers will find this a great boon!

Silicones and LEDs - removing heat and enhancing light

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. Our sales partner, ACC Silicones, have published a guide to products and applications in this growing field.

These include Optically Clear Encapsulants, a range of gels with differing cure cycles and physical properties. Together with harder silicone elastomers we can offer a product for most LED potting applications which require optical clarity. In particular, we can offer refractive index from 1.40 to 1.49, with an exciting new product available at 1.53.

Dissipating unwanted heat away from the diode to a suitable heat sink is essential for overall performance and can easily be achieved by selecting a thermally conductive silicone encapsulant. When selecting a thermally conductive encapsulant there is always a trade off between flexibility and thermal conductivity, due to the nature of the fillers used - as you raise the conductivity you will also see a rise in hardness. ACC Q-Sil 553 has been proven to provide a good balance offering reasonable conductivity whilst retaining a low modulus and hardness, thus reducing stress during the thermal cycle.

We get stuck into the Love Truck

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 was an Art Car – defined by Michael Trainer, Curator of Art Cars 2007 as “A drivable installation – any vehicle which has been re-imagined, re-styled, re-modeled, or completely metamorphosed by an artist into a transport of delight.” In this case it was conceived by Baroness von Reichardt as a Tiki Love Truck based around the tiki symbology of a large carved talisman in humanoid form, common to Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean. The Tiki Love Truck is a magical mosaic/ceramic adorned automobile, driven by two lovely hula girls who give out messages of love and peace as they drive by.

The base vehicle was a standard Nissan diesel pick-up truck to be covered in glass tile mosaics and ceramic Polynesian cultural images for the purpose of competing in art car parades – a major feature of the USA parade scene – but first revealed in the UK in Manchester 2007, where the Tiki Love Truck won the Makeover class alongside such vehicles as Crazy Golf – a VW Golf in grass effect with golfing participants, Bog Standard motorised bath tub, toilet and wash basin, Minnie 7 patchwork fabric covered Mini and Car Jack – a car removal robot wheeling away a Volvo like a wheelbarrow!

The Baroness googled "adhesives" and discussed the project with our technical advisors who suggested the adhere IRS 2125 Flexible Epoxy Adhesive – rapidly earning a reputation as a "stick-most-things-to-most-other-things" kind of adhesive in high performance specialist areas. It is a black epoxy resin system with a combination of flexibility and high adhesion strength on materials such as metal, glass, rubber and many plastics, including cable insulations and connector backshells at temperature up to 150°C. Originally developed for cable harnesses, fixing cables into connectors, IRS 2125 often solves problems where other adhesives are not suitable, offering relative flexibility and high strength adhesion for high technology bonding, sealing and insulating applications.

This suggestion proved to be a complete success over the 5 hours a day, 7 day installation and subsequently. Explains the Baroness, “As an artist I find the process of mosaic very therapeutic, hence the name of our organisation – the Treatment Rooms – and this adhesive certainly facilitated that process. It is just incredible – nice to use because you don’t have to mix it and with a convenient setting time. The tiles have been solid as a rock ever since. We have used the Love Truck for charity activities and will be taking it to Blackpool soon and then to Gateshead on New Years Eve.”

adhere IRS 2125 is flexible by epoxy standards, can seal to IP68 (continuous immersion) and it has a long shelf life (up to 18 months) and a pot life of 90 minutes at 23°C. Combined with excellent resistance to solvents such as de-icing fluid, petrol, oil and hydraulic fluid it really does what an adhesive should do – it produces tough bonds that withstand vibration and flexes sufficiently for many electronics, electrical and structural bonding applications.

This two-part system has a simple 1:1 mix ratio and is supplied in an easy to use side-by-side double syringe cartridge, complete with static mixing nozzles.

Not just flying high, cooking too

Part of our range of silicone adhesive/sealants from ACC, the Silcoset range has a long-established reputation. They are approved for use by the MOD and Rolls Royce in aerospace and other critical applications.

With high temperature resistance and good adhesion, you would expect there to be other, perhaps more conventional, applications as well. You would be correct. Silcoset 158 is the product of choice for fixing glass panels onto doors and hinges in domestic ovens.

A free wipe

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 have just introduced a convenient pre-saturated wipe, the ADH1610 Isopropyl Alcohol Cleaning Wipe to help you make better bonds. Isopropyl alcohol is the solvent of choice for the final preparation, cleaning and degreasing of all substrates prior to adhesive bonding. In addition, it is useful for the cleaning up of many uncured adhesives, sealants and resins.

There is a form to request a free of charge sample, too!

Latest brochure for electronics assembly adhesives

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

Araldite 2000 PLUS launches

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 by the team at our sales partners, Huntsman Advanced Materials.

Last week, we took the opportunity of Nepcon at the NEC Birmingham to have our own UK press launch at the show - you can download our press release here.

Our Araldite 2000 PLUS stand at the show was the first public unveiling in the UK of the new range and product logo. It was very popular, with many visitors taking an interest in new adhesives with a focus on bonding plastics and metals. Our Araldite adhesives webpages have already been updated with the new information. See for yourself!

Good conductivity

We have just updated the website with a Technical Bulletin describing the case for silicone conductive compounds, and why they have so many applications.

One product fairly new to the range is ACC AS1806, which is a single part thermally conductive silicone adhesive. It is a black paste, with a fast, neutral cure and good adhesion. It has an excellent thermal conductivity of 1.55 W/m·K.

It is used for electronics applications in aerospace, under bonnet automotive, consumer products and LED applications. Because of its neutral cure and the absence of any harmful by-products, ACC AS1806 is a perfect replacement for conventional oxime based silicone adhesives. A self-levelling version, ACC AS1803, is also available.

Visibly tamperproof in an instant

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 potentiometers. DYMAX 3086-RF seemed to fit this bill perfectly:

• Very fast cure with UV light


• Good adhesion to metal and hard plastics


• When cured, is a hard polymer which is both red in colour and fluorescent


• Solvent free - not only environmentally sound and safe to use, but no worries about solvents or vapours getting into the product


• Comes in both free flowing and thick grades

Supplied in a dispensing syringe, it's easy to apply. Of course, if you want something like this but temporary, one of our UV cured masking products would do the trick.

Heated discussion settled!

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 used in the structural aerospace industry? Your knowledge will be greatly appreciated.

The answer is: yes, structurally as well.

When a Scottish helicopter manufacturer needed an adhesive to bond the pre-preg moulded seat chassis they knew that to guarantee safety they had to pick the best performing and most reliable adhesive available. Araldite was the natural choice.

The shaped surfaces of the aluminum to carbon fiber reinforced epoxy (CFRE) joint were strongly bonded with Araldite after a simple preparation of degreasing and abrading of the contact surfaces. The resultant bond was a robust and vibration-resistant. Araldite is one of only a small number of safety-approved products deemed suitable for this high performance situation, and is a first choice for aviation designers in this field.

How many substrates are in your medical device assembly?

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 use materials that offer the absolute best performance in their medical devices. Unfortunately, this can create assembly challenges in their manufacturing process. The bonding options for various combinations of dissimilar substrates such as polycarbonate, stainless steel, PVC and polyurethane are limited and typically require the use of multiple adhesives or assembly methods.

DYMAX MD® light curing adhesive 1161-M provides a single solution for all these combinations. 1161-M permits engineers to use the best performing materials for their product designs and at the same time, optimize their assembly process. Discover a Better Assembly Solution. Discover DYMAX.

We thought it was a very simple, yet very powerful message!

Car headlights - illuminating!

DYMAX 3-20469 features fast cure speeds, the ability to cure through clear, UV blocked plastic and offers advanced features for a variety of vehicle lighting assembly applications. It cures through large gaps and forms excellent bonds and seals on assemblies with unusual shapes and less than perfect fitting joints.

In addition to headlamp assembly, other vehicle lighting applications for which UV cure adhesives have been used successfully include tail lights, fog lights, and side lighting. DYMAX 3-20469 passes Ford’s Headlamp Performance Tests (Ford WSS-M11P28-B2).

Structural adhesion to plastics and other construction materials means that a smaller amount of 3-20469 adhesive may be used than with some other types of adhesives and sealants, such that some manufacturers have reported this allows for a larger reflective area and consequent increased lamp brightness.

3-20469 cures in seconds upon exposure to a high intensity UV/Visible light. Fast cures, ease of dispensing and in-line quality control capabilities allow for fast parts processing, ease of automation, J.I.T. assembly, reduced work in progress, lowered energy costs and increased throughput, while avoiding off-ratio rejects and reducing the manufacturing footprint. The one part "cure on demand" approach to adhesive technology eliminates pot life and hazardous waste concerns.

We also have adhesives for lens bonding, vent-hole sealing, lead tacking, bulb positioning and fixturing and various associated electronic coating applications. High temperature grades are offered that withstand the heat generated in close proximity to bulbs for positioning and fixturing applications. Some of the physical properties of these vehicle lighting adhesives include a wide range of viscosities, elongation from 20 to 300%, excellent thermal and mechanical shock, vibration, and moisture resistance characteristics. The products have shown superior durability during extensive road testing under harsh environmental conditions.

Users Guide to Adhesives

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 to make best use of adhesive bonding.

The guide comes from the inventors of adhesives capable of bonding metals! The Araldite® trade name is known world wide in industry and in the home. We are UK sales partners for Araldite 2000 General Bonding Adhesives.

Click for download - 246Kb pdf

Pushing the boat out

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 space frame which forms the skeleton structure of the boat. It is riveted and bonded to the aluminium hull with Araldite 2015, an epoxy adhesive paste which cures at room temperature.

“When we began the project we were confident that the advantages of using adhesives in automotive engineering would transfer to a marine application”, says Martin de Bruijn. “It soon became apparent that the Araldite adhesives were the only products available that guaranteed strength, improved performance, and increased the durability of the design.”

Getting the gas out

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 the material whilst mixing - and then a degassing stage can remove what's left (down to micron levels). The planetary action mixes quickly and completely. The degassing mode is more effective than a simple centrifuge.

An epoxy resin, approximately 250,000cps
Before processing Countless microscopic air bubbles exist (60x magnified)
After 3 minutes "Mixing Mode" Only a few size 15μm air bubbles are visible
After 2.5 minutes "Degassing Mode" No air bubbles are visible under 60x microscope

Are you troubled with gas?

Adhesive for acrylic aesthetics

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 joint is required.

One solution is to use DYMAX 3099 (pdf file), a UV curing plastic bonder which works particularly well on acrylic. It gives a very strong, high clarity bond, and offers all the advantages of UV cure: a single part adhesive, very fast cure. Combined with a UV curing lamp, DYMAX 3099 has been used for exhibition displays, trophies, post of sale stands, signs, covers, and many other acrylic applications.

It's clear: Opti-tec 5013 is great for glass bonding!

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 cases, we invariably recommend Opti-tec 5013, which is a two part clear epoxy which bonds very well to glass (and metal). It has the viscosity of honey, which means it is fairly easy to use, and a fast cure time, which minimises fixturing and holding. It is supplied in a convenient side-by-side double syringe cartridge.

Opti-tec 5013 is used for bonding and repairing glass