Contact adhesives

A contact adhesive (also known as ‘contact cement’) is a type of adhesive that is rubber based. Contact adhesives can be made of natural or synthetic rubbers such as polychloroprene.

Unlike removable adhesive, once the surfaces over which a contact adhesive has been applied make contact, the bonding is permanent.

Contact adhesives are available in liquid form, either as water or solvent. Many contact adhesives available as solvent are toxic and flammable, but have the advantages of drying faster and offering a quick bonding process.

In order to work, the contact adhesive must be applied to the two surfaces that have to be bonded. However, the two surfaces cannot be bonded right after the contact adhesive is applied. Instead, the contact adhesive must dry before the bonding happens. Some contact adhesives can take up to 24 hours to dry, but once this has happened, the bonding process is usually very fast.

Once the contact adhesive has dried, the two surfaces can be bonded together. Usually, the bonding process can be performed within 30 minutes (in some cases even within an hour) after the adhesive has dried. A high level of accuracy is required as the bonding is permanent and repositioning is nearly impossible. As a result, the only way to separate two surfaces bonded with contact adhesive is by damaging one or the two of them.

Contact adhesives are common in the woodworking industry, where they are used to bond laminate to other wood surfaces. They are also used to assemble building panels, countertops or furniture.

Contact adhesives can be used to apply labels over a surface. However, once applied the label cannot be removed without damaging the surface it is attached to or itself. Removable labels are considered a much better solution if the label must be removed from the surface it was applied to without causing damage or leaving traces of adhesive behind.