This disclosure is concerned with enabling the use of multiple liquid adhesive nozzles principally to provide continuous uniform adhesive layers, particularly in relatively small items such as cigarette filter tips or the like, wherein a critically oriented adhesive shear surface adjacent the nozzles causes the plurality of adhesive beads simultaneously deposited by the nozzles to merge into a full, continuous, uniform coating, and with additional control features provided to control the degree of merger from separate adjacent beads to uniform merged coating.