Don’t trust all-purpose glue

Kevin Kelly recently turned 68 years old. Amongst many achievements, he is a co-founder of Wired magazine, and was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog.

He celebrated his birthday by giving us 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice. There are many gems of wisdom there, and I do encourage everyone to read them. Some of my favourites:

• You can obsess about serving your customers/audience/clients, or you can obsess about beating the competition. Both work, but of the two, obsessing about your customers will take you further.
• You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.
• Trust me: There is no “them”.
• Don’t trust all-purpose glue.

Now I expect the last one is both a literal, pragmatic piece of guidance from someone who has experienced a few disastrous dis-assemblies in his time; and an allegory along "Jack of all trades, master of none" lines.

Nevertheless, in our technology adhesives world, it resonates strongly. I regularly deliver a seminar entitled The Art and Science of Choosing a Structural Adhesive. I talk about how to choose and evaluate the optimal adhesive from an increasing number of structural adhesives on the market. We start with design and work through production and processing considerations, and consider the various factors which influence a choice.

Many customers come to us with the need to choose and evaluate one of our adhesives for their latest project. When we go through this process with them, it is striking how each application is almost completely unique, and how many tricky requirements come through from the engineers, who are primarily in the technology manufacturing sector. There is no universal adhesive which works for everything, because each of these applications has necessary priorities in performance or process which demand something special. Something special is what we offer, both in material choice and the ability to help you get it into a stable, consistent production process. You need to trust that the material you end up specifying will be reliable for the lifetime of your product, and our team helps you take the risk out of your choice for your unique application.

Don’t trust all-purpose glue. Good advice.