Solvent Based Adhesive Problems

[gluedudeguru]

I am currently working on a solvent based adhesive that consists of 3 solvents and 3 vinyl resins. In the warmer summer months, this adhesive could sit for 2 days and be thick enough for packaging. These cooler days (Michigan)the adhesive is having trouble setting up. Any suggestions? More vinyl resin or perhaps more time uncovered or mixing or temperature.

Also, if anyone knows of a chemical colorant that is a color when it is wet and clear when it dries?

 

[olmanpete]

Is there some reason you cannot simply warm the material so the solvents are at the same vapor pressure they are in the summer?

 

[gluedudeguru]

I am in what is considered an explosion proof building. I dont have any real instruments, i have no effective way to heat anything, large or small in quantity. I dont think that explosion proof is necessary but until i can fix that, i have to deal with it. Plenty of solvents but are always capped and well ventilated.

 

[btrueblood]

GlueDude...

You can't or won't tell us what the resins and solvents are, have no way of knowing what the temperatures for the two conditions are...and you expect some kind of reasonable answer?

Are you using this glue to assemble some parts prior to shipping them? Or are you mixing batches of glue, and want the viscosity to be correct prior to filling containers to ship to customers that use the glue? It would seem to me in the latter case that you would have a lot better control over the product, and there would be no way that a variation in the formula would be tolerated.

 

[gluedudeguru]

My apologies for being so vague. I am in industry so I have to be careful of what i put out there in the world (I like my job and i dont want to leave.) This is a marketed glue that you could pick up in most sports stores. Its used to attach 2 substrates, carbon and urethane.

The problem isnt that the thickness affects how the overall product performs but rather how runny it will be when applied. We hold onto the glue until it thickens up before packaging, but once it hits our acceptable range, it gets packaged off to smaller units and sold to consumers.

What i am looking for is what is affecting the viscosity as it sits. Is it just time, or something else like temperature or humidity.

I thank you for all your help and sorry for the vail of secrecy.

 

[btrueblood]

Well, at a glance, it's just time and temperature, though air movement has a part to play as well.