My trusty old Stanley glue gun got clogged after being left plugged in too long. Reamed it with nails, paper clips, etc. without much success - just a little trickle of glue. Have burned the crap out of my hand three times, though!!!!
0-: >I'm going to cut a wooden dowel next to ream it from the back end. The glue stick flexes too much to make a good reamer. Any other ideas?
-- Bobby G.
"Robert Green" wrote in news:ia6a6u$tva$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:
A large drill bit, fed in by hand from the back, with a pair of pliers.
Even then don't expect a high probability of success. You're best to just buy a new one.
Do you leave the gun on its side when it's on?
Cracked three dowels trying to clear it. Best tool was a bare piece of #12 copper wire twisted into a tight hook. Yanked out oodles of black and brown crud. Still no joy .
Got a couple more burns, probably with carcinogenic material in the cheap glue sticks. FWIW, it was left on for a week nose down in a can that blocked leakage from the tip. This was my spare. I'm going to have to go three deep in spares now. Or get a timer that shuts off after 60 minutes. I believe there are some pushbutton timer wall switches that can do the job.
-- Bobby G.
On Tue 26 Oct 2010 10:47:45a, Robert Green told us...
Can't you remember to simply unplug it when your finished using it?
Wayne Boatwright wrote the following:
I'll have to write that down with all the other things I have to write down to remember. Now, where is that list of things I have to remember?
I presume you plugged it back in, and PULLED on the glue stick? I wonder what solven softens the glue. I'd not suggest to soak the glue gun in gasoline, and then plug it in. The glue might be too soft.
Take a strap of some kind, from the plug to your trousers. When you go to your next task, the plug will come out automatically.
"Robert Green" wrote in news:ia7ful$632$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:
That's one way to kill a hot-melt glue gun. The glue cokes-up and creates a hard blockage.
Wayne Boatwright wrote in news:Xns9E1D92B1DA775wayneboatwrightxgmai@69.16.185.247:
That's really, REALLY easy to forget to do!
At work we have a number of 3M Polygun ECs. These cost about $350 each, and are the very best available. They even have an on/off switch, which is really nice. And they last forever, unless somebody leaves them on for a week unattended...
We tried Stanley/Bostitch guns and a few other brands, but nothing
-- nothing -- even came close to the 3M Polyguns and 3M JetMelt adhesives in quality.
"Stormin Mormon" wrote in news:ia7oqq $mhn$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:
Not a great idea. It's not the glue itself, but the hard coke that's formed in the nozzle area when the gun's left on too long without glue-flow.
Another form of damage is "backmelt", which occurs when an active gun is left on its side for too long. That damage can occasionally be corrected by drilling-out the backmelted glue.
Glue gun needs a laxative?
"Stormin Mormon" wrote in news:ia7sbr $2ee$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:
Only if you can get different temperature-grades of Ex-Lax...
Well, I'll admit that I was blinded by the neon "ON" lamp (that the gun
*doesn't* have) and that's why I forget to flip the switch (that the gun *doesn't* have) when I got distracted by something that cause me to forget about something because of the not-so-early onset Alzheimer's which apparently I *do* have. So the answer to your question apparently is that I can't remember. It's also clear that things aren't going to get much better for me in the future so you'll have to gird your loins because you're likely to see more and not fewer such "what do I do now" questions from me.As for things to come, your point is well-chosen concering a theoretical gun I might own in the theoretical future, but this thread is dealing with a very tangible dead glue gun I have in the very real present. Maybe we need to rename the group:
alt.home.repair.ethics.theoretical.futurist.physics.human.behavior.scold
to cover all the bases. And here I was, thinking you were one of the smart ones, Wayne. What sort of response did you expect?
If you were one of my junior officers and I was doing your OER, I would write: "Boatwright demonstrates an uncanny and immediate grasp of the obvious."
(-:
-- Bobby G.
Yes, it's like that. (-: Along with the helpful reminder "ON" lamp and switch that the unit lacks.
Now what were we talking about?
-- Bobby G.
Actually, the reason it was idling was that it's got to be on for at least 5 minutes before glues flows, so without ON light or OFF switch, it's very easy to walk away from the gun and get involved in something else.
I've now decided to plug it into a old GraLab timer from the darkroom so that it can never run for more than 60 minutes without a manual reset. Same general idea as the strap but a little more elegant and less likely to accidentally yank a hot glue gun toward the family jewels by the cord.
The ideal solution, of course, would be a built-in autoshutoff based on lack of motion for 60 minutes. The timer is much easier to implement.
-- Bobby G.
Amen. No lights, no switch and a 5-10 minute warm-up time are all contributors.
And really unusual to find in a consumer level gun.
Yep. I've burned up glue guns before, and I will again, but I kind of liked this one because it had not, as of time of death, ever backed up a dribbled hot glue on the web part of the hand between the thumb and forefinger.
I also suspect that Home Depot's finest store brand of glue contributed to the problem. It really formed an incredibly hard, black calculus inside the nozzle. While feel I might eventually clear it out with dowels and fresh glue, I've already passed the "I want to smash it to bits with a sledgehammer" mark and am ready to buy a new one. But I always ask first in case there's a miracle cure I am unaware of out there.
Thanks for your input, Tegger!
I will put the new gun on a 60 minute maximum timer to help avoid such problems in the future.
-- Bobby G.
Yes, when I bent some bare copper wire into a hook, I hauled out darker and darker material - from dark brown, still molten glue to tiny hard black particles that were too large to pass through the nozzle.
-- Bobby G.
Yep. You can only draw so much of it out through the feed tube. At $10, it's going get a cordectomy and then a trip to the garbage can. There's not much to salvage except the cord. I tried to recover it for the educational value. I've learned all I think I am going to learn from anally probing a glue gun with a bent wire. (0:
-- Bobby G.
"Robert Green" wrote in news:ia9a52$p0g$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:
You can greatly improve the gun's longevity by using glue specifically meant for that gun, sold under that gun's brand name, even if it costs more.
Much experience has taught us that the wrong glue can coke-up really quickly, as well as having the wrong characteristics for that gun's heat range and feed volume. The correct glue will have more tendency to tolerate long periods of inactivity while at full-heat.
Yep, pretty much the same. The car keys started playing hide and seek a few months ago and haven't stopped. I got various keychain locaters, put a hook on the back of the door for them to be hung on the moment I come in, etc. But the sad truth is that if some other event occurs between when I walk in and when I stow the keys, that's where the keys might end up - such as the phone ringing, hearing the "you forgot to punch in the alarm code" warning tone, etc. Every time I think I've idjit proofed a process, I find that I am a bigger idjit than I thought.
I knew getting old was going to be bad, but I didn't know it would be THIS bad!
-- Bobby G.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.