About a year and a half ago we switched to Wilsonart 1731 spray adhesive. Now we are having calls for counter tops and cabinet doors where the laminate is just falling off. We have been in business for 25 years and never seen anything like this. Was wondering if anyone else was having this problem?

Richard,
While I can't speak directly to the Wilsonart product, I did notice that this is their VOC compliant product based on methyl acetate. My experience with similar products has been problematic at best. It's not that there is a problem with the adhesive but it works differently than traditional contact cements. If the operators are unaware of this you can see considerable de-lam. The products I've seen issues with have a very short open time because of the "compliant" solvent. Operators are used to having 1/2 hour or more to put the pieces together. I've seen methyl acetate based products exceed their open time after 5 minutes. Unfortunately, it appears that everything is bonded okay but it's really a very cursory bond. This may or may not be the case with the Wilsonart product but it is definitely where I would start.

Yeah we have had a glue rep in here and they said it was our spray pattern. If the glue is that temperamental then they should properly show how it needs to be applied. Does anyone know where the Wilsonart 1731 is manufactured?

Wilsonart adhesives plant is in Temple TX next to the laminate plant.

LOW VOC Methyl Acetate Glues are very different from traditional contact cements. The air pressure and fluid pressure has to be less. ( it should be on the tech data sheet) They atomizes very well. This helps with any telegraphing that may be caused by the "FAT" pebble pattern of traditional contact or the "WEB" pattern made by canisters. BUT, if the air pressure is too high then the glue can dry before it is even touches the laminate or board. This also makes for a pebble pattern that is very small. So, to make "CONTACT" proper pressure is a must. No longer can you get away with blocks of wood, hammer and block, flooring rollers, or your bare hand. 3" J rollers or pinch rollers should be used to get the "PIN POINT PEBBLES" to touch each other and make good contact. Once the glue contacts more individual places the bond is incredible. I would put it up against any traditional contact cement.

Great information Robert! I would definitely agree that there is no inherent problem with the glue. It's really more a matter of proper training and a full understanding of how it's different than the traditional stuff.

By the way, would you suggest using it for veneering? :-)

A better solution is water based contact. Not temperamental about short open times. It just needs to flash off long enough to not leave water behind. That is longer than traditional solvent based. That isn't a problem. You just work on a few more parts at a time with not labor cost increase. We've been using the Henkel product for many years. Greatly reduced health risks! It is different to use. So learn how first.

Larry,

Henkel makes a Water based contact cement? What is the name and number on it. thanks

We also have been in business for 28 years, switched to the low VOC glue and two tears later the laminate is falling off and curling up. We laminated both sides of our doors with the glue and only the exterior of the doors are falling off. Explain that?

JIM,
I have seen that with LOW VOC glues coverage and pressure are key in the bonding ability of the glue. If you have the laminated panel in a place were the laminate is going to grow and shrink quite often, then 100% coverage and 30psi is required. A pinch roller or a three inch "J" roller is recommended. No longer are blocks of wood or flooring rollers acceptable. Perhaps the exterior side had more fluctuations with moisture causing the laminate and substrate to move. This caused the glue to sheer and break.

I am only guessing here. But, you asked for an explanation. I could never know what happened in your case after reading one paragraph. I hope this helps.

An inspection by a qualified person will likely give us the reason for delamination. However, we know, and stated clearly in the above postings, that these low VOC and non-F (or minimal about of "F") adhesives require different procedures for application, different MCs, different pressures and so on. In fact, I provided that info to the EPA regarding the potential to switch from the "F" adhesives. I agree with Jeff, that the newer adhesives are indeed excellent; it is the application techniques where we have issues at times.

Regarding doors, we do know that the exterior side of a door has larger moisture content changes than the interior. This means that a glue joint on the exterior side will have to be stronger than the interior side to prevent delamination. So, if we are making a reasonable joint, but it is not as strong as needed, the exterior side will fail first.

We are having the same problem with delaminating. When we were thinking of switching to the product we were told specifically by our supplier that the process we used to apply the adhesive was sufficient for the glue. The specifications say to apply with 40-50 psi, which we are definitely doing. Now, two years later they are blaming our process for the delaminating, just as it sounds like the rest of you are experiencing. We have older projects (8 years old) where the same product is not delaminating, but the new projects where we had a different lot of the glue (2-3 years old) are delaminating. It seems that when the weather turns and gets drier we get notification from our clients. We also went to one client last year to test their laminates and found them securely attached without issues, and then just a few months ago the product is now delaminating. This is costing our company significantly as we are repairing these laminates under our warranty. We believe there was a bad lot of adhesive. We have documented all of this, and plan to file a consumer protection complaint. If anyone is interested in also filing a complaint, feel free to contact me for more info.

Can anyone say "Class Action Suite", and would you be willing to join? There is a law firm in Virginia representing a cabinet shop having huge exposure from using this adhesive over the past couple of years. I have his name and number if anyone is interested. We used this product for a little over 2 years and started receiving delamination phone calls at about the 1 year anniversary, or when the building cycled into the heating season. To date, we have had over $50,000.00 in out-of-pocket labor costs because many of these repairs need to be done during off hours and we have had to purchase several thousand dollars of replacement laminate and a glue solution to fix this issue for our customers.
Wilsonart is playing the "it's your fault" card with us and 2 other larger shops in our area, like we all forgot how to spray contact cement one day. Our local glue supplier has gone silent and rarely visits our offices anymore. Maybe a law suite will get their attention.

I really want to learn the names of other shops with 1730/1731 issues. We have almost $3 million in work out there that's being held together, or not, by 1730. In the past 2 weeks nearly $150k of work has been reported as delaminating.

Just like everyone else, we're going through the same thing. Seems like every week, I get a call about another project. My rep (Wurth Wood Group) has brought the WilsonArt glue specialist by and he said without sending a sample for testing, they can't tell. Some of the pieces are clearly application errors, but when there is 90% coverage, with no shiny areas, and some substrate actually coming off with the laminate, then that's not an application error. We've switched to StaPut SP80 canister to eliminate any human error, but we have 2+years of projects out there with the 1730. Prior to that we used the DAP low VOC and never had any problems. Wurth told us their glue was better, cheaper and would use the exact same pogo pump setup. Nothing needed to change. That definitely hasn't been the case. We would love to get information on any class action lawsuit, since we're not getting any help from our rep.

We have also recently had problems. Every other day I am getting calls that things are delaminating from 2 1/2 years ago. We started using the glue about 4 years ago and had no problems with those jobs. I have almost $10,000 in labor repair costs at this point. We have been in business for over 40 years. Never had a problem like this. Same story as everyone else. We all may have to get together on this. I don't know how many other projects are going to come up.

We are a small fabricator in PA and in the last 2 months have had to fix six jobs that were fabricated in 2014 using 1730 wilsonart glue. We have been in business since 1974 and the only time we have had delamination problems was with wilsonart blue glue. We all know that product resulted in a nation wide law suit.

This is a wilsonart problem. Talk to your wilsonart rep. We have projects with both 1730/1731 d-laminating. All 2 to 3 years old.
I believe wilsonart had a hard time trying to reformulate their adhesive to meet CA new VOC regs. I just love the government. Anyways, we have been getting payment from wilsonart for fixing these issues. It is a pain in the ass as we keep going back to the same jobs as new d-lam occurs. We invoice wilsonart each time.

Seems that the Wilsonart payouts are pretty selective and a paperwork-heavy process, but for those really taking big hits to repair all the d-lam such that their company is in jeopardy its worth the time. But you have to make a lot of noise to get tapped into the payment process. FYI I also know there are a couple law firms looking at this issue. They've been made aware of this thread and I think would contact everyone here if they plan to pursue something, but at the moment nothing is being promised litigation-wise.