When the Adhesive Cures Wrong, You Need the Mix Record from Three Weeks Ago
Structural adhesive bonding is unforgiving. A two-part epoxy mixed at the wrong ratio doesn't fail immediately — it fails under load, weeks or months after assembly, when the part is in service and the person who mixed it has no memory of that specific batch. Aerospace, automotive, marine fabrication — every sector that bonds instead of fastening has learned this lesson the hard way. The Adhesive Mixing And Application field in this template isn't a suggestion box. It's a permanent record of what was mixed, how, and when.
Drawing Number as the Single Source of Truth
Drawing No., Customer No., Customer, Description, Iss No. — five fields that lock each bonding record to a specific revision of a specific part for a specific customer. The issue number matters. A bonding instruction written for Issue 3 of a bracket assembly might specify a different adhesive or surface prep than Issue 4. When the customer calls about a delamination on a part you shipped six months ago, you pull the drawing number, find the issue revision, and retrieve the exact bonding record with its photos.
Four Steps, Four Images, Four Sets of Notes
Image 1 through Image 4, each paired with a Notes field. This is a visual work instruction that doubles as a quality record. The first image might show the substrate preparation — abraded surface, solvent wipe, primer application. The second captures the adhesive layup. The third shows the assembly in the fixture. The fourth documents the cured joint before finishing.
Each Notes field records what the photo can't: ambient temperature during cure, pot life remaining when application started, whether the adhesive was pulled from cold storage and how long it was conditioned to room temperature before mixing. The shop floor operator who takes these photos at 6 AM is building an evidence trail that the quality engineer will need at 2 PM when the customer's incoming inspection flags a bond-line thickness variance.
The separate Adhesive and Image fields at the bottom capture the adhesive product itself — batch number on the cartridge, expiry date on the label, the two-component ratio printed on the technical data sheet. When a batch of adhesive gets recalled by the manufacturer, you search that field and know exactly which assemblies used it.