What I'm not sure about is if Trim Solvent really works with anything but monokote. It's suppose to activate the glue without heat but it didn't seem to work when I tried it on Ultracote. . . .
Here are some facts (followed by some guesses). First, if you purchase Brodak film, the instructions emphasize the the
necessity of sealing the edges with trim solvent. Second, Brodak does not sell a trim solvent
. Third, no Brodak ARF instruction sheet (AFAIK) mentions trim solvent. Fourth, Brodak ARFs are famous for having the covering peel back.
The Top Flite trim solvent "works" with Brodak film. Low temperature hot melt formulae are pretty much standard across industries (that knowledge from adhesive chemists from the book industry, including Borden, National Adhesive, Peter Cooper, and others). However, hot melts are extremely sensitive to their (petroleum) suppliers, and an "insignificant change" in raw material specs can make a batch of adhesive fall out of spec pretty easily. Also, for unknown reasons, the "cooking" process can have variation, resulting in hot melts with differing solubility (for example) even in consecutive batches made from the same batch of raw materials. In short, making a low temperature hot melt is not quite as easy as making consistent baclava
. The higher temperature hot melts (350 degree) are far, far more consistent batch to batch.
My guess -- always use trim solvent on any brand of film. It will work a lot of the times. Sometimes it won't. UltraKote may be a case where it never works ?? I'll try a test, which, of course, will only partly answer the question, even if I get a bond.
Low temp hot melts are similar to adhesive tape -- the bond strength continues to build for at least 24 hours, which means trim solvent may also take a while to take full effect.
Larry Fulwider