A £500,000 automated hot melt adhesive plant up and running at Beardow Adams in Milton Keynes will boost production of BAMFutura, a new high performance unfilled hot melt for the woodworking industry.
The new plant can produce more than 1,000kg/hour continuously, increasing Beardow Adams’ existing capacity to well over 30,000 tonnes of hot melt a year. This makes it the biggest single hot melt plant in Europe and it represents more than 4% of world hot melt production.
Since BAMFutura was launched 12 months ago it has grabbed a 5% slice of the UK bulk hot melt market.
The company’s marketing director, Nick Beardow, said: ‘Part of this success is due to the fact that we can demonstrate greater mileage and better adhesion at a lower cost than the standard filled hot melts.’
The adhesives are pearl white in colour and use raw material technology unique to Beardow Adams. Mr Beardow said they are very clean running with no appreciable colour. ‘Most importantly, they do not char, gel, string or smear – all common problems with standard hot melts which usually lead to production stoppages,’ he said.
Heat resistance is over 100°C while application temperatures are 150-180°C – considerably lower than the average woodworking hot melt of 200-220°C – and therefore safer for operators to use. Performance is dependent upon the substrate and the company’s standard test method is based upon BS 6250 Part 3.
BAMFutura hot melts can be used for profile wrapping, softforming, pre-coating and edgebanding applications, giving good adhesion to a wide range of materials, including PVC, HPL, solid wood, melamine, wood veneer and many others. They can also be used on all types of woodworking machines.
For further technical information tel: 01908 574000.
