You've made a major investment in your equipment. Do not underestimate the importance of keeping it clean. This will ensure you get the greatest return on your investment.
Why A Clean Glue Pot (Pre-Melter) is Important
Keeping the glue pot (pre-melter) clean will not only help extend the life of your equipment, but it will help keep your glue running smoothly.
A dirty glue pot could result in a couple of problems:
- Issues reaching proper glue pot temperature - In order to get the protein glue to the recommended 140-150° F (60-66° C) at the roller, the pre-melter temperature should be approximately 172° F (78° C). If the glue pot is dirty, and the glue is caking up on the sides of it, you will run into issues with heating the glue to the appropriate temperature. When the glue is running too cold, you could run into issues with pop-opens.
- Glue running dirty - When the glue pot is dirty, this could result in a dirty glue application. If the old, burnt and caked up glue ends up on the glue roller, it could end up on your box wraps. This will make for messy equipment, and a very inconsistent glue application.
How To Keep The Emmeci Glue Pot Clean
We recently showed you the proper way to load protein glue into the Emmeci rigid box equipment. One key to keeping the equipment and glue running properly, is making sure the glue pot is clean. It is recommended that the glue pot is cleaned quarterly, or every six months.
Here are a 5 simple steps for doing so:
- Be sure to drain unused glue at the end of each working day (assuming you are not running a 24 hour a day operation). The glue will begin to degrade if it is heated, and cooled several times.
- At the end of the work week (assuming the work week ends of a Friday), drain the remainder of glue from the glue pot, and fill the glue pot with water.
- Leave the glue pot timer on to run over the weekend. This will heat the water in the glue pot for several hours on Saturday and Sunday.
- On Monday morning, the water in the glue pot should be emptied. Since the water was heated all weekend, almost all of the glue stuck on the walls of the glue pot would have dissolved. You'll be left with a fresh glue pot to start the work week. For any additional glue build up that didn't dissolve, lightly scrap away.
- Load fresh glue into the clean glue pot and begin to run.
- It is best practice to keep the glue pot (pre-melter) as full as possible. Loading too much glue at one time may cause delays in reaching the appropriate operational temperature.
Looking for a convenient protein glue troubleshooting resource for your rigid box equipment operators? Our troubleshooting guide was so highly requested, we decided to turn it into a magnet!
You can keep this right on your machines as a resource for your team.