askralph

Curtis asks:

I have a testing question regarding the FEFCO IX test:

We recently came across a customer with boxes that had the German indication “Naßfest” (pronounced nasfest). This means waterproof.

In practice this means that the outer liner is kraftliner (long virgin fibers for enhanced strengths, even with high humidity) and the starch used to glue the liners to the flute has to be waterproof, meaning that the boxes pass the FEFCO IX test submerging 4 pieces of the carton in a tank of water with a weight (approx ½ Lbs) attached to this and some liners and flutes cut (each sample is different) and next the weight should not drop within 24 hours.

Below is a diagram of the test. We normally perform a wet pin-adhesion test to identify the waterproof characteristics of the starch. Are these two tests similar?

Curtis, while the two test methods seek the same end, we cannot equate the results. You can only use the wet pin method if the customer is willing to accept the results which always seem to come out to 4.

— Ralph

This entry was posted on July 2, 2012 at 10:01 am and is filed under Testing and Specifications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.