Having recently appeared on the shelves of construction stores, hot melt adhesive quickly gained popularity among needlewomen and home craftsmen. Due to the speed of bonding and the wide range of applications, glue and thermal gun are unparalleled in convenience and accessibility. Of course, the strength of the joints in this way is not the highest and the scope is limited by temperature limits. But with the daily tasks of making various DIY crafts, hot-melt adhesive copes with the ease and speed that satisfies most requests.
Safety precautions
To begin with, it is worth mentioning safety measures during work using hot-melt adhesive. With their own hands, many housewives felt the danger of high temperatures in the kitchen and at home, so you need to remember safety.
Glue, adhering to the skin, releases a significant part of the heat, not only when cooling, but also during hardening. Therefore, it can cause burns much deeper than a hot pan or tile, from which you can pull your hand away in time, getting minimal damage. Additionally, you should carefully read the instructions for the device and follow the recommendations specified by the manufacturer.
Wax instead of glue
It's time to test the device in business. Glue, of course, they can, but much more interesting to find him an original application. The principle of operation of the gun is to heat the material and melt it to a liquid state. This means that any material with a suitable melting point can be used in the gun. So, wax crayons when heated in this way become not just a gel-like mass, like glue tubes, but a liquid, like drinking yogurt.
Using different colors and imagination, you can get colorful drops on cardboard or thick paper, and if you drip from a height of half a meter, you get blots. A gun, of course, can get dirty, and to clean it after artwork, you should skip a certain amount of factory glue that rinses the wax from the inside. Recall that wax is a rather oily material, and not all surfaces in a row can hold it for a long time. The porous structure of wood or cardboard is able to provide sufficient adhesion.
Vintage wax seal
In the same way, wax can be heated to make stamps and prints, for example, to seal a letter of congratulations or a personal message. Using coins or other embossed metal objects, you can even achieve similarities with wax seals that have become obsolete.
A letter with such a seal will not only please the addressee with its originality, but will also add some intimacy and mystery to the correspondence. Oh yes, the wax is quite fragile, unlike sealing wax, so do not trust these letters in the mail, present them personally.
Glue decoration
Do-it-yourself transparent or colored hot-melt adhesive can be turned not only into a fastener, but also into a decoration element. Simple and inconspicuous glass vases, treated externally with a pattern of hot-melt adhesive, will sparkle with new colors and will impress your guests as an original work of your hands.
In the same way, you can draw volumetric figures and whole pictures on any household containers, boxes and just on cardboard under a frame on the wall. Not any paint is suitable for coloring colorless glue - watercolor or gouache will quickly wipe off the surface. It is best to use acrylic-based paints or, in extreme cases, nail polish.
Crafts from hot-melt glue with your own hands - a wonderful pastime with children, training in them accuracy, responsibility and artistic flair. The main thing - do not leave children with the power on or just a warmed-up device in private.
Adhesive color classification
Let's deal with these colored sticks. It cannot be that manufacturers simply add dyes at random. Indeed, there is a recommended international marking and here are the main types of rods for a thermal gun:
Simple translucent cylindrical sticks are the most popular type of glue. Universal, used for a wide variety of surfaces and materials, suitable for almost any hidden and open mounts.
Colored opaque rods differ from universal ones only in color. It makes sense to get them to those who are engaged in crafts, children and florists. They allow you to mask the place of gluing under the overall color of the product without the use of additional coloring.
Black and gray stickers are designed for waterproofing areas, and are also used as electrical insulation. The non-shrinking and adhesive properties of the material are used in sealing window frames and in insulation of current-carrying parts of electrical appliances.
White opaque rods are used specifically for bonding metal and glass, except, of course, universal adhesives painted in white, pay attention to the packaging.
Yellow or candle, wood-colored translucent sticks have better adhesion to the porous structure of wood or cardboard.
In any case, not all manufacturers have yet reached common standards and it is necessary to check the technical properties of the adhesive, checking the packaging. There you can find the melting point of the material and the approximate temperature range of its use.
In electrical appliances, often materials that can withstand prolonged heating are required, in other cases, non-rigid plastic fixation, such as silicone, for example, in the manufacture of a hand tool, may be required. You also need to consider the capabilities of your device for working with glue, so that the thermogun has the power to melt the material during operation.
Do-it-yourself pistol
The market is now flooded with tools of not the best quality, and thermal guns are no exception. They break, usually at the most inopportune moment, and you may need a reliable device to use the remaining hot melt adhesive.
You can quickly build a heater for work from an old iron or use a soldering iron, but here you may encounter the problem of overheating of the material. For the permanent work of craftsmen, it is more likely to be inspired by the idea of making a gun for hot-melt adhesive with your own hands.
The current power regulator will help control the temperature
First of all, we need to make a current power regulator, no matter what kind of heating device we use. Overheating of the adhesive material will inevitably lead to its strong liquefaction (as a result - spontaneous leakage from the gun) or even burnout.
A regulator is made by sequentially switching the dimmer into an open circuit, as a switch, where it will perform the above functions and adjust the power of the supplied current. It will be convenient to make a separate outlet with a regulator on a piece of a wooden board, it is likely that control of the current power will be needed for other devices.
Hot water glue gun
Now we can be sure that the boiler will not burn without water, but will only heat up to the desired temperature. The next step will be the manufacture of a convenient handle, so as not to burn yourself on a heated device. The most accessible material for the pen is wood, but it is also afraid of high temperatures and to protect it, you can use the Teflon tape used in cooking.
As a working container for melting the glue, it is necessary to make a tube and a funnel from a can, connecting them together so that the edges of the funnel cover the tube. The diameter of the working crucible should be such that the funnel is tightly clamped by the turns of the boiler. Additionally, we reinforce the design with copper wire and test the device on a suitable piece of the glue stick. This design compensates for the lack of a supply lever with an incredible “omnivorous”, that is, the tool is suitable for any type of hot-melt adhesive, regardless of its melting temperature.
If the glue runs out
Consider the situation on the contrary, there is a useless thermogun without suitable stickers, and you need to glue something here and now. We put aside the orphaned tool until we buy suitable consumables for it and turn our attention to another, equally versatile heating device in use - a hair dryer.
Of course, hair models will turn out to be inappropriate here, meaning a professional building hair dryer that produces high air temperatures. Here they can heat the glue right at the junction. By the way, the glue itself literally rolls underfoot.
We offer 2 of the most common options on how to make hot melt yourself:
Foamed polypropylene or polyethylene can occasionally be found as a packaging material, but most often it is found in construction and finishing works as heat and noise insulation. The connection is obtained not only as strong as plastic, it is not afraid of shock and vibration.
The well-known plastic bottles that filled the landfills of the whole Earth are also suitable as adhesive material. Heat the entire bottle with a hairdryer for a long time, so it is better to cut the plate of the right size at the place of gluing.
Both options are unstable at high temperatures, but are suitable for most jobs where conventional hot melt adhesive is sufficient. This way, you recycle the trash and get an almost inexhaustible supply of glue.
Confusion in the names: glue for electrical circuits
For people associated with circuitry, the words "heat-conducting glue" have the same meaning as "hot-melt adhesive for radiators." It is very difficult to make such a material with your own hands, because chemical reactions are used here, and not a change in the state of aggregation of a substance under the influence of temperature.
It is impossible to compare the different composition and purpose of hot melt adhesives for the gun and hot melt adhesives for LEDs. With your own hands, it is possible to manufacture the so-called glycerin cement from lead slate and glycerin as a heat-conducting layer and a bonding agent at the same time.
There are also proven industrial versions of heat-resistant materials for gluing, which, of course, are better to have available than to prepare hot-melt glue yourself. Alsil-5 and Radial are the most famous brands among specialists. In addition, several types of heat-conducting rubber are produced. And how exactly heat-resistant glue is used should be read in the instructions.