I was talking with a manufacturer of “make to order” custom furniture. They were experiencing considerable downtime replacing plugged glue tips and reworking joints that did not receive enough glue.

In their automated assembly process, glue guns on a robotic arm are used to apply measured amounts of glue to the varous joints of the workpiece. When the glue applicator is shut off, a drip or two remains on the tip which hardens and builds up around the tip. As the build up increases, the flow of glue becomes inconsistent in both volume and direction. They have to shut the line down, clean the guns and replace the tips.  If they are fortunate enough, they can catch this before defective parts are made.

I suggested a process that many of our automotive customers have sucessfully employed. That is to use an EXAIR Super Air Wipe to blow off the residual glue.  They purchased a Model 2400 Super Air Wipe and programmed the robot to insert the glue tip into the high velocity air stream of the air wipe blowing away any excess glue from the tip. It worked as planned and eliminated all downtime to clean or replace clogged glue tips.

Being a custom high end furniture builder, quality glued joints that last for years is an imperative. Now with good clean nozzles they were able to insure the proper amount of glue application and a quality joint. The protection of their good name in the marketplace trumped the savings in downtime. All in all, EXAIR was able to offer a solution and we both came out with satified customers.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com