If you are a packing list envelope maker, you know that adding envelopes to corrugated boxes can use a lot of adhesive, consequently costing your company a great deal of money. If you could only decrease adhesive usage, you could not only decrease your production costs but also significantly improve your company’s efforts to work a little more eco-consciously. By adding an immediate competitive advantage, not to mention giving your brand something positive to talk about, this little “leg-up” can mean big stuff for your marketing and sales group and add big value to your brand. Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to decrease their adhesive usage. Being that this is what we have been doing for the last 61 years, we have some information that can really help you out.
Generally speaking, the usual choice for adhesive dispensing onto the back of an envelope is to cover the entire surface. Naturally, it seems fail-proof; so what more could you ask for? A lot actually. What most printing machinery, envelope makers, and coating manufacturers don’t know is that although this may seem like the right thing to do, it is unnecessary. Of course, this approach works and produces a reliable bond, but there is a better way; an approach that provides a bond equal in strength, but that uses a fraction of the amount of adhesive. This approach is called the window-frame pattern application.
By eliminating the need to cover the entire surface of the envelope with hot melt adhesive, and instead, applying the adhesive in window-frame patterns, you save up to 70% of your adhesive instantly. Coating equipment like Valco Melton’s FlexCoat™ applies adhesive intermittently using independent dosage from two separate channels. This ensures a constant and homogeneous grammage or coat-weight across the entire frame’s pattern. channel 1 dispenses a continuous and longitudinal application, while channel 2 dispenses an intermittent and perpendicular application.
Valco Melton’sFexCoat melting equipment is the best option for high-speed intermittent coating. The integrated against-roll mount assembly ensures that the coating head is accurately and consistently presented against its chromed back-up roller. After the backside of the envelope has been coated, the packing list envelope is sealed using a second system that applies a layer of adhesive onto the folded tab that will close and secure the envelope.
If you are looking to decrease adhesive usage and achieve instant adhesive savings of up to 70%, finding a coating station that can apply window-frame patterns is a great next step.
