HiPURformer Bonding System???

[Mark Patoka]

Does anyone have experience with the HiPURformer bonding system by Franklin? I'm considering getting it to speed up the assembly time of a large order I just received. It looks like the adhesive will allow me to attach prefinished facegrain pieces to unfinished endgrain. My main interest is that I can literally assemble a prefinished unit in 1-2 minutes vs. gluing, clamping each unit, and then finishing.

From other reviews I've read it sounds like a good system that bonds quickly without joint failure. The negatives I've seen are that the gun isn't the highest quality, prone to breakage, and the short shelf life of the adhesive tubes.

[Lee Schierer]

I saw a demo of this sytem in Woodstock Ontario a couple of years ago at their annual wood show. The demonstrator glued two piece of pine end to end while you watched, waited about a minute or two, handed the pieces to any big guy in the crowd and asked him to try to break them apart.....none did! The only drawback I see is the cost of the system initially and the fact that you have to wait a minute or two for the gun to warm up. Like any hot melt system, the open time is fairly limited so you better get it right when you assemble it.

[Bob Reda]

Mark,

I have been using it for over 2 years. I use the 60sec set basically because the 30 sec after it begins to cool down sets really fast. The only downside is that once it starts to cool, it gets hard and it is a gap filler, so you have to make sure your wood is perfectly fit to each other or it will push it apart and keep it that way. Works good for the type of project you are working on.

Bob

[john blanchard]

I looked at this system also, don`t like the hot gun idea, I saw the system Fastcap has at IWF, same Idea with letting some one try to break it, 10 second set time, this is the one I`ll be going with.

http://www.fastcap.com/prod2.asp?page=2p10kit

[tod evans]

mark, 3-m jetweld is good stuff too and their gun is tough....02 tod

[Bruce Benjamin]

I looked at this system also, don`t like the hot gun idea, I saw the system Fastcap has at IWF, same Idea with letting some one try to break it, 10 second set time, this is the one I`ll be going with.

http://www.fastcap.com/prod2.asp?page=2p10kit

Looks interesting but how is this different from or better than other brands of instant glue? I've never used this type of glue for wood working but this product does look useful for some applications. But those little bottles look like they'd run out pretty quick if you used them in place of yellow glue. Could you elaborate on your experiences? Thanks.

Bruce

[lou sansone]

mark, 3-m jetweld is good stuff too and their gun is tough....02 tod

agreed, used the gun and it is awesome, one drawback is the sort of short open time ( besides the expense ~ 500 for the set up if my memory serves me )

lou

[Richard Wolf]

I have gone thru three HiPURformer guns, and this is what I believe is the downfall of the guns. Once you open a tube of glue and use part of it, the next time you try to heat up the partially used tube, the glue in the tip area will not melt, at least not very fast. So you try to pull the trigger and the plastic parts strip.
The glue bonds very well, but is thick in nature, so a joint that maybe invisible with wood glue and clamps may have a larger glue line. A well engineered joint or used for applying pieces to each other and the system works well.

Richard