Problem with hot glue setting too fast

[marcus]

I am making 2 dozen frames using a strap clamp and hot glue from a glue gun (I posted earlier). I did this project once before, but I am getting very different results and need some advice.

The glue is setting up within 10-15 seconds, so I cannot get the frame to draw tight. My workshop is barely 70 degrees, and it was probably 90 degrees this summer when I did it before. Also, it is a different brand hot glue.

I only need the minute working time the package says I have. Would I have any luck pre-heating the frame pieces in the oven so they were warm to the touch? Any other ideas? A different brand? These are high temp glue sticks BTW. A very fast, very strong epoxy? I cannot afford to clamp each one overnight.

Thanx!

[Frank Ketchum]

Hot glue can be reheated and reset many times. I own this heat gun which I have used for this

$20 you can get the joints in approx the right position and keep reheating them and tweaking them until you are happy. Alternatively, if you just use regular titebond woodworking glue, it sets up enough to take out of the clamps in a half hour and can be handled after 24 hours.

Frank

[eganders]

I love hot melt for many reasons. I even tried using it on picture frames like you. Since how a frame looks has a lot to do with how closed and neat the miters are, I would tend to stay away from hot melt. Yes, you can heat the frame materials and it will probably do OK. If you aren't going to use something to reinforce the joint, then I might try hot stuff or some other brand of medium thick cyanoacrylate. It is quick and pretty strong. And you don't have the problem of the adhesive potentially creating a gap No glue is going to be real strong on an unreinforced miter.

[eganders]

I love hot melt for many reasons. I even tried using it on picture frames like you. Since how a frame looks has a lot to do with how closed and neat the miters are, I would tend to stay away from hot melt. Yes, you can heat the frame materials and it will probably do OK. If you aren't going to use something to reinforce the joint, then I might try hot stuff or some other brand of medium thick cyanoacrylate. It is quick and pretty strong. And you don't have the problem of the adhesive potentially creating a gap No glue is going to be real strong on an unreinforced miter.

[marcus]

Thanx I have tried reheating with a heat gun, and was pretty unsatisfied. I think your idea of titebond is the way to go -- clamp them for an hour or so, let them sit overnight, then drill and pin them. btw -- is scraping the hot glue off the failed joints sufficient? I don't want to sand them down and resize the frames if I don't have to. Cheers!

Frank Ketchum wrote:

[marcus]

Well, strong and fast is more important than pretty. I am thinking titebone now. Cheers!

-- clh

[e-mail] wrote:

[Silvan]

Hot glue has a few uses, but I haven't figured out what they are. I own a glue gun. After searching for it for an hour, I finally just melted a glue stick with a torch to do the one little project I needed it for. (Sticking the carpet liner back inside a trumpet case I had worked on.) This was the first time I had gone looking for the glue gun in probably eight years.

Try some real glue, and I think you'll be much happier with the results. Like many things in life, you get out of it what you put into it. Hot glue sticks fast, but the bond it makes just isn't very good. Take four popsicle sticks. Put a dot of red hot hot glue on one of them, then clamp another one perpendicular to the first, making a + shape. Put a dot of yellow glue on another one and squish the last one on just using finger pressure alone. Don't clamp. Let it dry. Try to separate them.

The hot glue that was clamped (or not clamped, either way) will come apart with little effort, while the yellow glue that was just stuck together will take some real effort to break the joint, and one side or the other will have bits of wood stuck in it. That's with yellow glue that isn't applied correctly. If you clamped it properly, you'd probably snap the popsicle sticks before you ever got that joint to break.

[marcus]

Yeah -- I am beginning to think my earlier success was dumb luck. Cheers!

-- clh

Silvan wrote:

[leonard]

hi I would use the wood glue too, but to answer your question about hot melt glues , there different formulations of hot melt glues some that stay open longer than others, some are plaint while some get very hard ect. But these are use for various different industries. you may want to try a carpet layers supply house or a craft store good luck