What Has Happened To This Hot Melt Tank?
Here, we are looking at the base of a hot melt tank, absolutely covered in gelled up glue that won’t allow molten adhesive to pass through it. That black stuff is a mixture of cooked glue and debris, and is likely the end result of years’ worth of neglect. Check out our article on the benefits of putting your hot melt tank on standby!
What we can see here is that glue has cooked to the point of forming a thick jelly. This jelly needs to be removed to allow the molten adhesive to flow through the system.
So how has this happened? Well, this tank has been left switched on, including overnight and on weekends. This leads to the temperature of the glue rising past the point of use and instead cooking the glue . It may seem easier to just leave a hot melt tank running, instead of starting it up again every day, but this is the long-term result.
An additional problem could be that the tank has been overfilled and glue has leaked. Instead of filling up in one go, consider investing in an automatic glue feeder that tops up your tank little and often and helps to prevent overspill.
Remember to use the standby button on the side of the tank. It drops the temperature of the glue just low enough for it to not cool to solid, but also it won’t cook the glue and cause a build up like this. It will only take a few minutes a day to reheat the glue to usable temperatures and you’ll save yourself a fortune in cleaning fees and potential downtime.
Contact Adhesive Laundry for glue tank cleaning solutions. We also offer cleaning for glue guns, so give us a call on 01480 869 220 or click here to arrange an enquiry.