Quality Adhesives Are Made Easily with Our Mixing Process

A good adhesive is only as consistent as the mix behind it. Resins, rubbers, fillers, tackifiers, solvents, and water all have to wet out, stay suspended, and finish at a stable viscosity. When the mix is incomplete, the plant sees grit, skinning, weak bond strength, and batches that do not match the last one.

Kady International builds high-speed rotor-stator mills for that work. The same process used for coatings, inks, rubber solutions, and high-solids slurries is used for adhesives and sealants: one high-energy head, strong circulation, and a vessel set up for the formula. Quality adhesives are made more easily when wet-out, dispersion, and homogenizing happen in a single, controlled step.

What Makes Adhesive Mixing Hard

Adhesive batches rarely stay thin. Many start with chunks of rubber or resin, pick up fillers, then thicken as solvent flashes or polymer hydrates. Common problems include:

• Rubber or resin pieces that sit on the bottom instead of dissolving
• Pigments and fillers that clump and leave grit in the film or bead
• Oil or solvent phases that separate if the emulsion is not fine enough
• Heat that drives off solvent or starts the polymer too soon
• Long cycles that use extra tanks, choppers, and media mills

Those extra steps cost time and make batch-to-batch color, viscosity, and solids harder to hold. Kady’s mixing process is built to cut that chain down.

The Kady Mixing Process for Adhesives

A Kady Mill pumps material through radial slots in a high-speed rotor and throws it into the staggered slots of a stationary stator. Tip speeds reach 9,000 feet per minute. The action is impact and attrition as well as shear. Auxiliary propellers above and below the head keep heavy solids moving into the working zone.

In an adhesive batch, that sequence typically does three jobs at once:

1. Break and wet. Rubber chunks, resin chips, and powder agglomerates are fractured and exposed to solvent or water.
2. Disperse. Fillers, clays, and pigments are reduced and distributed so the adhesive applies without specks or weak spots.
3. Stabilize. Turbulence and repeated passes through the head help lock in a uniform viscosity and a more stable emulsion or solution.

Because energy is concentrated in the head, many formulas finish in one vessel. Kady also uses this as a premill: the mill delivers a tight premix so later media milling, if still required, takes fewer passes.

Adhesive Types That Fit the Process

Kady lists adhesives and sealants among its regular applications, including rubber solutions and contact cements. The process is useful across several families:

• Solvent-borne rubber adhesives and contact cements
• Water-borne adhesives that need fine filler and polymer dispersion
• High-solids sealants and construction adhesives
• Pressure-sensitive and packaging adhesives where tackifier and polymer must be uniform
• Filled industrial adhesives that carry clay, calcium carbonate, or other extenders

The same mills handle related jobs that often sit next to adhesive production: oil emulsions, liquid colors, and two-inch rubber chunks charged without a separate shredder in many formulas.

Why the Process Makes Quality Easier

Quality in adhesives is practical. The mix has to look clean, apply evenly, and perform the same from drum to drum. High-intensity rotor-stator mixing helps that in several ways:

• Shorter cycles. Dispersions that take hours in a low-speed dissolver are often finished in minutes. Kady has long reported time savings of up to 90 percent versus traditional blade mixers on suitable formulas.
• Better solids handling. The mills are used on high-solids systems, including up to 75 percent clay and 65 percent TiO2 in coatings work. That same capacity helps filled adhesives stay pumpable and uniform.
• Less heat damage. Short residence time limits solvent loss and unwanted cook. Jacketed vessels add heating or cooling when the formula needs it.
• Fewer machines. Wet-out, chopping, and dispersion can share one tank instead of a chopper, premix, and mill line.
• Scale-up that holds. Lab mills use the same rotor-stator idea as production units, so a one-gallon trial can map to plant equipment with less guesswork.

Equipment That Matches the Line

Kady custom-engineers mills instead of forcing one layout on every adhesive plant:

• Lab mills such as the Model L, LT2000, and Model LB for formula work and customer samples
• Top-entry production mills for existing tanks and many solvent or water batches
• Bottom-entry mills when heavy rubber, fillers, or high-solids paste tend to settle
• Continuous-flow mills when throughput is high and a steady, homogeneous stream is preferred

Options include vacuum for deaeration, pressure service, sweep arms for thick product, variable-speed drives, and materials chosen for solvents or abrasion. Refurbished mills can be modified to the same duty and carry a new-machine warranty.

Prove the Mix Before You Commit the Line

Adhesive formulas vary too much for a one-size claim. Kady offers free testing so the rubber, resin, filler, and vehicle can be run on a mill and measured for particle size, temperature, and cycle time. Those results guide horsepower, tip speed, and batch or continuous layout.

For a trial, a quote, or help fitting a mill to an existing tank, contact Kady International:

30 Parkway Drive Scarborough, ME 04074 Phone: 207.883.4141 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Hours: Monday–Friday, 8 AM–5 PM

Quality adhesives are made easily when the mixing process does the hard work up front: break the solids, wet them out, and finish a stable batch without a string of extra machines.