News
The Science of bevel bonding
For over 10 years, RegaLead and UV-Tek have worked in partnership to supply the best adhesives and equipment for the bonding of glass bevels. With over 1000 units sold worldwide and in excess of 4 million bevel pieces successfully bonded in the last 10 years, UV-Tek is clearly the market leader in its field.
There are literally hundreds of UV Adhesives
on the market from a variety of suppliers,
as the technology is used in everything from
dentistry to structural bonding of steel. But
UV Tek is unique in that it was developed with
just one application in mind - bonding bevels.
During the development stage, the team at
UV Tek worked closely with RegaLead to
understand exactly how our customers
were bonding bevels and the problems they
encountered both technically and in handling.
This lead to the launch of the first system
on the market to combine adhesives and
equipment which were designed to work
with each other.
The key to the UV-Tek equipment is that
curing is from below and the timing is
controlled. We come across so many
companies that use overheat, hand held
lamps and have problems with the bevels
over time as the adhesive has not been cured
thoroughly or consistently. As you can see in
Diagram 1, when curing from above using a
hand-held lamp, the UV Light getting to the
adhesive is not even and this will lead to
stresses in the bond line. When bonded using
the UV-Tek equipment (Diagram 2) the UV light
is hitting the adhesive with no interference of
deflection and will be even across the bevel.
With Fusion tiles, the only way to ensure a
good bond is with a curing system that works
from underneath. As the tiles are made from
various glass colours they will transmit UV
light at dramatically different rates and in the
case of the opaque colours no light will pass
through at all.
It should also be noted that when curing with
hand held lamps there is no control of how
far the UV light source is away from the bond
line. As UV light is shortwave - and is very
powerful across a short distance - these
variations in the distance between the lamp
and the adhesive can have major effects on
the performance of the adhesive. With
UV-Tek, the distance is always the same
and all our machines have are fitted with
electronic timers allowing exactly the right
amount of UV exposure.
