An Alternative to Spray Adhesive for Textile Printers

Many years ago, I had one of those bright ideas that backfired on me. Instead of extruding lines of adhesive across the web of a production line laminating one sheet of paper to another, I replaced the extrusion heads with six spray valves.

I learned an important lesson. Anytime you atomize something, it gets into the air. You may not see the miniscule particles of adhesive. Nevertheless, a mist of glue gets over everything. In no time the equipment was covered with adhesive.

Printers, who spray aerosol adhesives in a garment print shop, experience the same problem but to a much lesser extent. I recently discovered an alternative for spray products. It’s a non-aerosol adhesive that you spread onto a pallet with a squeegee. Not only is it a cleaner application, it’s also a little more environmentally friendly.

The new adhesive is Tekmar TB-HV. Using this product is safer and healthier than spray adhesives as it has none of those nasty VOCs that pollute the air and is non-flammable. And if you follow the product instructions, it is also non-hazardous.

One printer, who was using RTape Pallet Protek pallet protection tape, asked if you could apply the new adhesive to the paper tape. His concern was that the water-based adhesive would penetrate the paper resulting in the tape delaminating from the pallet. Not a problem!

If you use the adhesive sparingly, this should not occur. In the photo below I have applied the RTape Pallet Protek tape to the pallet. Then I spread a very thin bead of adhesive at the top of the pallet.

Using a squeegee, quickly spread the adhesive over the entire surface of the pallet, as show below. If you need more adhesive, just apply a dab more and spread that out too. The key is to use the least amount of adhesive to accomplish the task.

When you are done, clean-up is a piece of cake! Because the adhesive is water-based, you can easily wash off your squeegee with warm water. If the adhesive on the tape gets dirty, just replace the old pallet protection tape with a new piece and reapply the adhesive. When you are working with this adhesive, I recommend wearing disposable gloves to prevent skin contact and the potential for any allergic reaction.