Padding Compound and Fan-Apart Adhesive; still a thing in 2022

Here’s a fun fact for which we are very proud:

HAR is the largest supplier of packaged bindery adhesives in the country. 

How it came to be…
 

A glimpse into the history of bindery adhesives and HAR

For over 50 years, Padding Compound and Fan-Apart Adhesives (i.e. Carbonless Adhesives) packaged in quarts and gallons has been a core business at HAR – over 30 years ago, it was just about all we did. Historically, we sold these bindery adhesives to hundreds of paper merchants from coast to coast. As time went on, many of those small, mainly family-owned merchants either closed or were sold to large packaging distributors like Unisource, Xpedx and now Veritiv.
 

So, how did HAR become the largest supplier of packaged bindery adhesives in the country?

Here is the timeline:

1940s: Vinyl Acetate polymer technology, also known as homopolymer, was perfected and became cost effective, opening the door for its use as a binder for paper.
Early 1960s: A polymer chemist by the name of Art Harad started HARAD Chemical and drove across the country from town to town to sell his padding compound to printers and paper merchants.  About the same time, the Goines family in Charlotte, North Carolina started the Champadco brand and Bob Ames of Painesville, Ohio started the Merit brand.
1996: Joe Cerino purchased HARAD Chemical and changed the name to HAR Adhesive Technologies
2002: HAR acquired Champion Manufacturing and the Champadco brand
2006: HAR acquired the Merit brand
2022: HAR has gone from 4 employees, mainly producing packaged adhesives in one location to over 50 employees in multiple locations.  We now produce and distribute a broad range of adhesives and adhesive application equipment, sold into many end use markets.  Thanks to our employees, our valued customers, and our Vendor partners, HAR has grown into a respected leader in the markets it serves.
 

The story of HAR today

Today, our packaged adhesives can be found across North America and throughout the Caribbean Islands. We continue to sell our Padding Compound and Fan-Apart Adhesives to the paper merchants that remain in business, along with packaging distributors of all sizes, printing supply houses, and an array of online distributors. We continue to offer free freight to anywhere in North America on packaged adhesive orders of 12 cases or more. We have a private label program so our customers can differentiate their offerings. We offer custom tinted padding compounds and custom formulations when needed. We even offer a specialized water-based bindery adhesive for book conservation. Over the years we added a full line of hot melt perfect bindery adhesives for small printers using tabletop padding presses to large printing houses across the country.

Along the way, HAR has grown larger and more diverse. We are one the largest and longest tenured Distributors of HB Fuller adhesives in North America.  We also distribute a full line of ITW Dynatec hot melt application equipment.  We have carefully added various other adhesive and equipment vendor partners to supplement the needs of our customer.  Today, we support our customers with a full line of adhesives and equipment, product development, engineering solutions, problem solving, spare parts and a repair service.  For the year 2020 and 2021 our efforts were rewarded by HB Fuller and ITW Dynatec.  We were named the North American distributor of the year for 2020 and eastern US region distributor of the year for 2021 by HB Fuller.  We were named North American distributor of the year for 2020 and 2021 by ITW Dynatec.
 

HAR has evolved, but we always remember our roots

Over the past 30 years, HAR has evolved into a recognized and reliable source for adhesives and adhesive application solutions.  We strive every day to live to our customer promise; “solutions beyond your imagination”. Yet, even today at HAR, Padding Compound and Fan-Apart Adhesives are still a thing, a really important thing.



Joe Cerino
President
HAR