Question
Those of you out there that have a glue pot system, how do you eliminate the white line effect on darker colored laminates? We have tried the transparent glue but it is so sticky it clogs up the buffing wheels and increases the cleanup time tremendously. Currently we mix colors to get a tannish-white, which works well on all but the darkest wood grain laminates or the dark solid colors. Any tricks out there? Cleaning the pot is not a good solution for us, as we may run 3 colors in an 8 hour shift and cleaning/flushing the system can take a long time. I've tried coloring the glue with ink, but this then creates the problem of going back to white parts.
Forum Responses
(Cabinetmaking Forum)
From contributor J:
I just did a bunch of black on black and went through the "how should I" thoughts you're going through. I've got a Brandt KD56, use "natural" pellets, and have a real tight glue line anyway. But a good scribing motion over just the glue line with a fine point black Sharpie made things perfect. Maybe a half minute a door. There's a color out there that'd work. It's got to be a Sharpie, though, or it could smear and maybe wipe off.
Are you guys actually cleaning out the pot or eliminating enough of the old glue to get it out of the bander? It sounds like you may have some vulcanized crud that is from last year that is working its way into your new glue. This created all kinds of problems for us until we cleaned out the pot and ran just enough glue at the bottom to continually eliminate the crap. This was pretty tricky, though, and someone had to check the glue every 5-6 minutes until it was completely cycled. This really eliminated the sharpie work. The theory behind it is to stop overloading the pot and it keeps the crud buildup on the sides from contaminating the rest of the pot.
