What is stringing and tailing and how can it be eliminated?

Stringing or cobwebbing may not seem the worst disaster on your hot melt adhesive packaging line; but it is a nuisance even if just an aesthetic one; and at worst it can cause a lot of damage. The picture below shows a case where these wispy trails built up enough to cause destructive damage to a hot melt conveyor line resulting in a £10,000 bill for a new one.

Apart from anything else the preventative maintenance required to clean stringing from machine parts is downtime which production engineers can do without.

So, what causes this strange phenomenon and how can we prevent it?

In this whitepaper we look at:

  • The 3 phases of bonding in a hot melt adhesive
  • The eight causes of stringing and remedies:
1. Application temperature of adhesive too low
2. Nozzle too far from substrate
3. Environment too cold or draughty
4. Poor set-up causing jet to overshoot substrate
5. Fast production line
6. Application equipment
7. Condition of adhesive
8. Choice of hot melt adhesive

 

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