At Spectrum, nothing is more important to us than providing quality products to our customers – especially because we use much of what we sell, ourselves!
All products experience deviations in quality, and mass-produced consumables are no different. Over the past couple of months, a handful of customers contacted us about a small number of our sanding discs separating from the backing during use. Although we hadn’t recently experienced this in our own shop, we asked for customers to return samples to us for manufacturer investigation – in order to prevent the reoccurrence of this issue.
After re-evaluating all aspects of production and speaking with their suppliers, it was determined that Norton (a company which our manufacturer both produces for and purchases backing material from) has (for the past 5 years) intermittently substituted different backing material they believed to be 100% identical if not better than normal. At no time did they communicate this to our supplier.
While marginally thicker and more durable, it turns out this this backing material was also less absorbent, which made our supplier’s adhesive less effective. By the time discs reached our customers and anything was reported to us about these discs, those batches were all but gone from manufacturing and largely consumed, so determining the cause proved challenging.
It’s the nature of sanding discs (particularly fine grits like 320+) that applying too much adhesive can cause bleed-through, wrinkling the discs and leading to a less consistent finish – so this and many other aspects of production are computer-controlled to ensure consistency. Simply adding more adhesive to every disc could cause more problems than it solves! In the end, executives at Norton have promised they will advise our supplier should there be any further deviances from the norm so they can adjust adhesive volume (or make other adjustments) as needed.
We remain committed to preventing and minimizing the impact of quality deviations like this as we – as end-users ourselves – understand the frustration associated with inconsistent product. Should you encounter defects with any of our products, please refrain from disposing of affected stock and reach out directly to info@spectrumalberta.ca with evidence of the problem.
Thank you again to anyone affected for your patience as our supplier worked to correct this issue!