Karran Sink Installation

Karran stainless steel sink being mounted into a Formica laminate countertop. This step by step article shows how easy it can be with results that most don’t relate to a laminate counter.

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Integra Adhesives Announces Price Drop

Integra Adhesives USA Inc. is proud to announce a major investment at its manufacturing facility, adding 40% production space and drastically increasing its production capacity. With the US economy on a growth curve and its product becoming the adhesive of choice for an ever-increasing number of Solid Surface, Quartz and Natural Stone fabricators, Integra is now more than ever in a position to meet the North American demand and be extremely price competitive.

“The cartridge based adhesive market has become very crowded over recent years, some of the competition coming from Asia, some of it from low-cost web base distributors“, says Integra. “To remain competitive while maintaining very high-quality standards, Integra has become the only fully integrated manufacturer, with its own packaging, mixing and dispensing system. Moreover, we made sure to remain at the forefront of the technology by boosting our R&D department with Chemistry engineers and PHDs. New investments in automation now insure that we minimize the labor component of our cost of goods, increasing our competitiveness“.

This announcement comes with very good news for US fabricators. As of March 10, 2014, Integra is reducing fabricator pricing on its most popular colors sold in 250ml cartridges. “As we are now producing these colors in larger batches, we are in a position to pass on the savings to fabricators,” says Integra. “This new pricing affects over 30 different colors that match the majority of commonly used surfaces. Fabricators are now not only guaranteed high quality and fresh products for extended shelf life from Integra, they get the best of both worlds: extraordinary savings on our most popular colors and almost 300 other colors to choose from, sold at a very competitive price, for perfect matches on infinite surfaces.”

More details on this announcement can be obtained by contacting Integra adhesives at 1-888-862-6665.
www.integra-adhesives.com

Avani Unveils First Collection

HIGH-END kitchen brand Avani has unveiled its first collection – a clean and contemporary series of eye-catching units. Created by Dror Benshetrit, founder of New York-based studio Dror, Avani’s inaugural Arc collection features lacquered doors and white Corian countertops juxtaposed against hand-rubbed white oak or walnut cabinets.

Adhesive Shelf Life

Most fabricators have a shelf (or shelves) of partially used glue tubes of various vintages. How do you know what is safe to use and what you should just dispose of and replace?

While there is some variation from manufacturer to manufacturer, old solid surface adhesive should always be tested before use if you suspect it is near or past its shelf life.

With Seam-it adhesives, you can expect a shelf life of 12 months from the date of production. We’d like to give longer than a 1-year shelf life but having no control over storage conditions limits us. If stored properly (room temperature or below) our adhesive will perform within reasonable cure speeds for 18 months – 2 years.

The main thing to consider if you have dated solid surface adhesives is that they do not just stop working one day. The catalyst component gets weaker over time and high-temperature storage accelerates the process. Therefore, a solid surface adhesive that is one month old stored at 72 degrees will cure at say 30 minutes. The same cartridge 12 months later, may take 38 minutes- 18 months, 43 minutes etc, etc. At some point, the catalyst becomes too weak to fully cure. If you were to store the same glue at 100 degrees the degradation of the catalyst would occur faster (might take 45 minutes at 6 months). Worst case scenario, a couple of hours on the dash of the install truck in Florida during the summer will render it useless.

If you have old solid surface glue, run some beads and time the cure. For Seam-it, we recommend a rock hard cure be achieved within 30-45 minutes for the adhesive to be considered within spec.

Finally, to dispose of outdated adhesives properly, purge the cartridges into a container, mix in a ventilated area or out of doors, and leave to harden. Caution, a large mass of adhesive will generate a great deal of heat when curing.

For more information about countertop surfacing adhesive, visit www.GlueWarehouse.com

About the Author: Chad Thomas has been in the adhesive industry for nearly 10 years, previously working for a major manufacturer and now as a partner at Gluewarehouse. Expertise includes color matching, bonding theory and glue applications in the surfacing industry. Contact chad at chad@gluewarehouse.com or call 877-595-4583