Contact adhesives: The right handling counts

Contact adhesives offer you a wide range of possibilities for bonding various materials. For example, you can glue together carpets, vinyl, leather, cardboard, rubber and various soft materials with this sort of adhesive.

Contact adhesives are often used in materials with high shear strength, such as laminates. In the automotive industry, they are used, for example, for attaching profile and sealing gums or fabrics. In addition, contact adhesives are used in saddlery shops, workshops and service facilities.

How to: The correct handling of contact adhesives

With the aid of contact adhesives, you achieve optimum support and maximum durability. However, only if it is handled properly and you apply the contact adhesive correctly. In the case of improper use, the surfaces to be bonded are likely to stick together. However, the adhesive strength and the adhesive results are limited in the case of incorrect handling.

We therefore recommend the following procedure:

A thorough surface cleaning: The ‘nuts and bolts’ of an optimal bonding result

In order to achieve the best possible gluing results, it is first necessary to clean the surfaces to be glued. The surfaces should be free of moisture, oil, grease and dust. For surface cleaning, we recommend KENT Acrysol and / or KENT Soft Surface Cleaner. Both products offer optimal cleaning results and therefore the best prerequisites for the best possible adhesion result.

The correct application of the contact adhesive

Once the surfaces have been cleaned, the contact adhesive is applied with a thin, uniform layer to the surfaces to be bonded. With the KENT Clear Bond you can apply the adhesive using the brush in the lid.

Unlike other adhesives, you should initially allow the contact adhesive to dry for several minutes. The flash-off time should be at least two minutes. If you subsequently apply the surfaces to be glued together, you need less pressure than other adhesives.

After a short pressing of the surfaces, no pressure-exerting aids are required. The use of terminals is therefore no longer necessary.

After gluing together, repositioning is no longer possible – not so at KENT

For many contact adhesives, you cannot move the surfaces once they have been pressed against each other. A different positioning is thus no longer possible. KENT Clear Bond, on the other hand, offers the possibility to move and reposition the surfaces 90 seconds after gluing together.

Particularly in the case of large surfaces, it is often helpful to be able to correct and optimize the position once the surfaces are pressed together. This enables you to compensate for minor inaccuracies in the mating of the surfaces, thus ensuring optimal positioning.