What type of film adhesive is more used?

Devil with bad attitude · September 17, 2003

Can anyone take a calculated guess (including personal usage experience) as to what flat glass fixing adhesive is used mostly throughout the USA irrespective of brand?

A foreigner asking!

Downunder, flat glass commercial and domestic films (not referring to PS security films) are almost totally CDF dry adhesive. Why this is so I don't know. :lol6

Thanks,

Devil.

September 17, 2003

Ease of installation - little concern for the possible later date removal.

September 17, 2003

and is CDF adhesive more difficult to remove than PS?? say, after six months, glue for glue, which is gonna be more of a bear to remove? just curious

Tinitman · September 17, 2003

I think most companies now use dry adhesive systems. They are marketing a way if the ease of installations. I know one company that says they have never had a warranty claim due to the adhesive failure. They might not have had a claim but we have removed quite alot of the stuff to tell you it has gone bad. And what a mess it is to remove when it does go bad.

Longevity of either PS or dry in my opinion is about the same. In 18 years of installing I have never had to replace anything due to adhesive failure. That is installing both systems. Last week we replaced film that was 30 years old because it was flaking. The adhesive was still good and it was PS.

I don't think it is the adhesive that fails, I think it is the laminating adhesive. Look at all those cars that have curled a layer.

Devil with bad attitude · September 17, 2003

Old CDF dry is a dog to get off. It mostly seperates leaving the clear poly on the glass and that's your worst nightmare.

PS does the same but at least you can get a go at the sticky chewing gum adhesive.

So I take it read that it's dry in the US for the future flat stuff? I thought there might have been more replies on this topic but it appears that most members on here must be auto tinters. :thumb

Devil.

September 18, 2003

Beyond ease of use, I think that they use dry adhesive because the water actually reacts to the adhesive in order to dummy proofs the instalation a bit. With a PS adhesive, water removal becomes a bit more important. I would also bet that the Dry stuff is cheaper.

As for why they use PSA on safety films, My understanding is that most Safety films Multilayered/3mil and up, use PS Adhesives because they do not bond as well to the glass, and alow for the glass to sort of slip when impacted. If the glass does not move when the glass is shatterd, it has a greater chance to tear the film. (How Old Castle Glass explained it to me.)

Tinitman, could you PM me what film you were talking about going bad?

September 18, 2003

I use all cdf...removal can be tricky...lotsa blades involved usually one per window to be fast...I took of 400 sq feet on tuesday was done in 5 hours...by myself at that..beat the shiot out of me too...the things I do for cpfilms....

HarveyD · September 18, 2003

I'm surprised to hear that anyone feels that CDF and PS have equal longevity. We replace lots of (out of business) competitors failed film and it's almost always failed PS adhesive. We've been installing CDF for 20+ years without adhesive failure problems and I don't feel like difficulty in removing CDF is a negative since we don't experience failures that require removal. It's funny to me when a competitor uses that as a knock against CDF. Perhaps a film that is difficult to remove indicates a better adhesive in the first place.

Tinitman · September 18, 2003

Well from my experience here, we have replaced a fair amount of film with that type of adhesive system and it was bad.

However, most replacements were delamination, or the SR coating failing. The adhesive in all the cases I can remember were still good. That is for both types.

Devil with bad attitude · September 19, 2003

Tell you what gets up my goat!

I'm dragged off shopping this avo with the misses and go right past a Safeway store and adjoining liquor shop I tinted with clear security film about 6 years ago. I point out my job as we all do.

One of the panes I tinted is completely stuffed and looks like the glass is made out of that very old antique drawn glass from about the turn of the century. I could also describe it as nearly being beautifully patterned with texture now.

Consider that it was all installed at the same time with the same solution, same technique etc. but why the hell does this happen? And we're powerless to do anything about it because whatever we sell today is always a b*mb ticking away.

It's obviously the PS adhesive but wouldn't you reckon that we shouldn't have to put up with this sort of thing in these days of modern film manufacturing. It's not like film has been around for 12 months or so.

Devil