FROM HIGH-SPEED BOOKBINDING TO TEMPORARY, PEELABLE FUGITIVE ADHESIVES FOR DIRECT MAIL AND TIPPING, YOU GET FORMULATIONS THAT APPLY CLEANLY, CUT OFF WITHOUT STRINGING, AND SURVIVE THE MAILSTREAM.
You run customized, branded substrates at high speed, and a small adhesive problem never stays small. Sometimes a mailer tears when the recipient opens it, the glue leaves a stain across a branded piece. A coating on your pocket folder may cause adhesion failures. In the bindery, you may experience low page pull values, gummed up cutters, or spines that don’t flex right.
You shouldn’t have to choose between a bond that holds and a mailer that opens clean.
The right adhesive peels open without tearing or staining, cuts off cleanly to eliminate stringing, and runs through your equipment without fouling filters or nozzles. It melts efficiently in a standard tank, handles safely on the floor, and survives the stress of finishing and the mailstream.
Our graphic arts adhesives are matched to your substrates, your equipment, and the speeds you actually run, so you get an adhesive that just works and a team that picks up the phone when it matters.
In graphic arts and print finishing, adhesive failures show up in predictable ways, and most of them trace back to formulation rather than operator error.
A fugitive adhesive has to bond securely, then peel open clean for the end consumer. When a cheap commodity glue tears the paper on opening, the common fix is to soften the bond with added oils or waxes. Those additives then leach into the paper and stain the branded mailer, so you trade one defect for another.
Fugitive adhesives are naturally tacky, so the raw pieces can block together in the package during transit. To stop that, many suppliers coat their small pellets in a heavy, talc-like powder. That excess powder quickly clogs filters and nozzles, and the maintenance downtime costs you far more than the glue ever saved.
If the adhesive doesn't cut off cleanly from the applicator, the result is stringing, tailing, pop-opens, or pages pulling out of the finished book. On a fast finishing line, that shows up as rework, scrap, and complaints.
When one glue works on some substrates but fails on others, you end up running several products from several suppliers. Purchasing gets complicated, mix-ups happen on the floor, and quality control becomes a guessing game.
When something goes wrong, you need answers fast. A distributor or a multinational selling through a call center can't diagnose a machineability problem they've never watched happen on your equipment.
Fugitive and permanent hot melts for tipping, direct mail, and bookbinding, delivered in clean-running chubs and pucks that melt efficiently without the talc powder that clogs equipment.
High-speed water-based formulations for “casing in” hardbound books.
Functional and aesthetic overprint aqueous coatings formulated to your substrate, coating weight, and activation requirements.
When off-the-shelf glue stains, tears, or strings, Capital develops a formula tuned to your exact substrate matrix and consolidates the suppliers you're juggling into one.
Whether you're running high-speed inserting equipment or finishing perfect bound books, our adhesives are engineered to bond at your production pace, fast or slow.
Every batch meets spec, runs the same, and stays clean through the line, so your operators don't need to tweak settings or troubleshoot mid-shift.
When something breaks, we're there. You get fast answers and real support from people who know your machines and resolve issues quickly.
We don't guess. We match adhesives to your substrates, machines, and conditions to get a product that runs right the first time, every time.
Products ship from our Midwest plant on time every time. No delays. No scrambling. Just predictable orders that keep your production on schedule.
With formulas designed to run clean on your machines, you skip trial-and-error, avoid jams, and get bonds that hold, no matter what.
Graphic arts production relies mainly on hot melt adhesives: fugitive (temporary, peelable) hot melts for tipping and direct mail, and permanent hot melts for the spine and hinge of perfect bound books. Water-based adhesives and coatings handle additional finishing work. Capital formulates all of these for high-speed production equipment.
Using the right oils in our hot melt products is the first step. Next, matching those oils to the base polymer helps to prevent leaching. Capital engineers the release properties into the formula itself, so the adhesive peels open without tearing the paper and without staining agents. Lastly, understanding the printing technique employed and the coating (or lack thereof) is paramount. For example, a lightweight digitally printed sheet that is uncoated requires a very different adhesive than a thick paperboard with a UV cured overprint coating.
Stringing and tailing are are signs that the adhesive is not paired well with your applicator valve. Applicator valves can be either electrically or pneumatically actuated. The closing force on an electric valve is less, and requires a certain adhesive to achieve clean cut offs. When the adhesive doesn’t cut off cleanly from the applicator, it strings or tails across the line, causing all sorts of issues like downtime for cleaning, or quality issues from your pieces sticking together. Capital formulates adhesives for clean machining and consistent application.
Often, yes. Many plants run several adhesives because no single product performs across all their substrates. Capital’s lab develops a formula tested against your full substrate matrix, which can consolidate several suppliers into one, as it did for Data-Mail when three suppliers became one.
Capital is a mid-sized manufacturer that formulates and ships direct. You get custom adhesives matched to your equipment, shorter lead times from our Midwest plant, and direct access to the people who actually make your product. When your line goes down, you talk to an expert, not a call center.
It’s built to remove your risk. Capital starts with bench-top lab testing on your exact substrates. Once performance is confirmed, we often provide a production sized quantity to trial on your line. If the adhesive doesn’t perform, you’re not invoiced.
We'll understand your processes, materials, application challenges, and goals.
We'll provide custom-tested samples, optimize formulations, and deliver consistent bonding at your line speeds.
With responsive support and high-quality adhesives built to minimize downtime, run efficiently, and deliver consistent performance.
