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About Spartan

Chemistry that solves problems. Since 1974.

Spartan Products, Inc. is a privately held adhesive manufacturer that's been formulating, manufacturing, and shipping industrial adhesives from Crystal Lake, Illinois for over fifty years.

Our Story

Built around the customer's spec.

Spartan Products was founded in Crystal Lake, Illinois in 1974 with a simple premise: most off-the-shelf adhesives don't quite fit the customer's actual application. The fix is to listen carefully to the problem, then build the right chemistry for it.

Fifty years later, that's still the way we work. We've grown a deep portfolio of water-based, solvent-based, and hot-melt adhesives, and we've kept the in-house laboratory that lets us tune any of them — or develop something entirely new — to match what our customers actually need.

Our adhesives are used worldwide across packaging, automotive, construction, textile, military, theatrical, and consumer markets. Every one of them ships out of the same Crystal Lake facility we've operated since day one.

What We Stand For

Three principles that shape how we work.

Engineering First

Every customer conversation starts with an applications engineer, not a sales script. We can't recommend the right adhesive without understanding the substrate, environment, and line — so that's where we start.

Custom When It Counts

If our existing line doesn't quite fit, our laboratory adapts or formulates from scratch. Custom isn't a premium service — it's how we've operated since 1974, and most of our long-term customer relationships started there.

Made in America

Our adhesives are manufactured in Crystal Lake, Illinois, with a domestic supply chain. When something needs to change quickly — a viscosity tweak, a new color, a regulatory document — we can move fast because the lab and the plant are in the same building.

Milestones

Fifty years of customer success.

1974

Founded in Crystal Lake, Illinois

Spartan Products opens its doors with a focus on industrial adhesives manufactured to meet specific customer needs.

1980s

Water-based portfolio expansion

Spartan develops its dextrin (DBA) and polyvinyl acetate (PA) product lines to serve the growing packaging and labeling industries.

1990s

FDA & regulatory specializations

Direct-food-contact, USCG-compliant, and other regulated formulations are added across both water-based and solvent-based product lines.

2000s

Solvent-based performance line matures

Neoprene and synthetic-elastomer cements (the SA-96xxx series) become the go-to bonding solutions for difficult substrate combinations.

2010s

Low-VOC reformulation

Low-VOC alternatives developed across the solvent portfolio in response to evolving regulatory and customer sustainability requirements.

2020s

Hot-melt technology added

Spartan expands into hot-melt adhesives — EVA, metallocene polyolefin, and pressure-sensitive hot-melts — to serve high-speed packaging, assembly, and converting customers across all three core adhesive chemistries.

The Laboratory

An in-house lab that's always ready.

Our laboratory is the heart of how Spartan operates. It's where stock formulations are tested batch-to-batch for consistency, where custom adhesives are developed for specific customer applications, and where our applications engineers vet recommendations before they ever leave the building.

Most evaluation samples ship within a week of the engineering call. If a custom development is needed, we'll scope timing on the first conversation.

Put Our Lab to Work →

Markets We Serve

Trusted across industries worldwide.

Spartan adhesives ship to customers across North America and worldwide, supporting production lines in some of the most demanding manufacturing environments.

Packaging & Converting

Automotive

Construction

Textile

Woodworking

Foam & Furniture

Military & Defense

Air Filtration

Bookbinding

Bottle Labeling

Theatrical

Consumer Goods