New assignment is a shoe-in!

“You just never know who you are going to meet at an exhibition and what the next application will be,” says Graham Crozier of Newcastle-based Advanced Adhesives.

The company, apart from having a vast range of its own products, is also the UK and Ireland exclusive distributor of Loxeal Products. Crozier had just met with Daniel Busch of German company Cross Swords, a specialist shoe manufacturer of shoes for transvestites. “When we are at an exhibition, it gives us a great start point when the potential customer comes with samples of the materials that are causing the challenge.”

Comments Busch: “The process was pretty complex, as there were different materials involved, but most importantly, as it was a high-end fashion product, we wanted the solution to be clean and strong. I specifically came to the exhibition to find a solution and, within no time in meeting the applications specialist Graham Crozier, I was confident that I would find the solution. What I was not expecting was the attention which was afforded to a specialist manufacturer.”

Going with the lifestyle

Much of the work that Advanced Adhesives does is with certain industrial sectors, reveals Crozier. “Within its client base are aerospace, automotive, electronics and medical equipment manufacturers, and all manner and means of SMEs. We have dealt successfully previously with a shoe and footwear manufacturer, bonding a bow onto a shoe for Clarks footwear, but never before a specialist manufacturer of lifestyle footwear.

“Meeting with Cross Swords gave us an opportunity to display exactly what Advanced Adhesives can do to assist an existing or potential customer with their product development. Initially, we did some exploratory tests on sample materials of the shoes’ heels, which needed a solid silver pair of swords bonded into the ABS heel, then an acrylic plastic window bonding over the top and into the heel to protect the silver cross swords."

Adds Busch: “Advanced Adhesives realised very quickly that the adhesive we would need to choose to bond all substrates would have to be strong , with a high degree of flexibility and impact resistance. These shoes are for dancing, you know.”

Crozier takes up the story again: “The initial focus was to see if we could have a single adhesive to carryout both applications, but, with an eye on the production line process Cross Swords had envisaged, this was going to be difficult. The selection of an adhesive for the bonding of the silver swords was a flexible and impact-resistant clear epoxy, our Loxeal 36-10, which needed to have a degree of open time, as the application was very precise and, with a small volume of adhesive being applied, it was important to have a good degree of working time.

"With the adhesive being a 2-part adhesive, it would have been production line prohibitive to have to change mixing nozzles regularly, not to mention wasteful with a faster curing adhesive which would be curing before being dispensed."

Clear thinking

“For the bonding of the acrylic window, we had to again have an adhesive which was flexible and impact resistant, but also had to be clear, so no visible bond line, able to have a timescale of assembly time to position the window in place and then cure as quick as possible.

“Taking in all the parameters of the adhesive requirement and the production line requirement of not having a lot of heels in a jig for a long time period, a ‘cure on demand’ adhesive was the only solution, hence the selection of our UV curing adhesive Loxeal 30-12, a single part, clear, strong and flexible adhesive specifically formulated for bonding thermoplastics.

“We use our in-house Applications Centre to solve manufacturing problems and use adhesives to provide solutions” explains Crozier. “Once we had established the best adhesives to use on the Cross Swords application, we then set about testing the bonded assemblies to ensure the adhesives could cope with impacts and stresses it would experience within its use.

“Once the bonded assemblies had been aged 10 years in the ageing chamber, we tested for strength, utilising the impact tester. It was good to see the acrylic window exploding during these tests, but, with the adhesive joint being totally intact still, a sense of satisfaction that we know what our adhesives and application knowledge are capable of, hence the tag we are being given of being an applications specialist,” Crozier adds.

Standing up to the test

Further comments Busch: “Once adhesive testing was presented to me by Advanced Adhesives, along with our own testing of their adhesives, we were convinced that the solutions from Advanced Adhesives were the solution for our application. However, the next complication we had was with our production line process not being set up and, with demand for our product being immediate, we had orders to fulfil, but could not yet produce.

"Advanced Adhesives again stepped in, bonding our initial batches of production run components on their in-house robot and UV curing equipment, allowing us to meet our immediate demand. Going that extra mile for a customer really does put Advanced Adhesives in that number 1 spot of suppliers for us.”

Crozier again: “Yes, we were then involved in producing both prototype and pre-production editions of the heels. We were delighted that, in this case, we could work hand in glove with the company, helping and supporting them to get their product successfully to market; this is the norm at Advanced Adhesives. We are now into our third decade as a business and have many, many clients who have come to us seeking practical solutions to their production problems, which we have solved.

"We have certainly developed our consultative approach to the business of selling adhesives. We consider ourselves to be experts in our field and have a great deal of customers who agree. We are keen to open our doors to existing and new customers with changing challenges, and welcome enquiries from an ever-growing list.”