Helpful Hint - Working With Hot Glue Guns at Your Modeling Workbench

Photo 1 Copyright 2020 Nicholas Kalis 

Two Different Lengths of Hot Glue Sticks

Photo 2 Copyright 2020 Nicholas Kalis
This is an example of smaller hot glue gun and 0.7 cm glue sticks

A Few Random - but useful - thoughts on working with hot glue guns

Helpful Hint

•  First, Watch Out! - this Glue can get very hot - touch it before it has cooled down and you are in for a nasty experience
• Helpful Hint  Better, if after you have applied hot glue and it has eased out and looks messy, have  a scrap piece of foam core or what ever else you are using to scrape away the excess hot glue - toss it immediately into your waster receptacle and you will have a neat end result without getting burned.

USES

•  These glue guns can be your best friend in a million applications around your layout
•  I have even used them to build dividers with foam core for my workbench drawers
•  Hot glue guns are one of the most inexpensive plug-in electric tools you will ever own
•  They are superb for putting together either a rough mockup with foam core or building the sort of mockup that never gets replaced
•  Hot glue guns can even be used to build a foam core core for a detailed model
•  In the larger scales such as G and F the hot glue gun can help assemble a trestle; just add NBW castings and no one will be the wiser as to how your trestle came together

 WHERE TO FIND HOT GLUE GUNS

• Hot glue guns and the glue sticks seem to be found everywhere - online, art supply stores, large box arts & crafts stores, stationary stores such as Staples; I think I have seen the glue sticks even in the tiny stationary aisle of my supermarket, The glue sticks come in many different brands. I have not noticed any difference in brands. Basically the glue sticks you choose will be a matter of what store carrying them is convenient to you and whether you want to do a bit of bargain hunting regarding your purchase.

•  Helpful Hint Buy both sizes of hot glue guns - both large and small; be aware they use two different sized of glue sticks
• A smaller glue gun will come in handy for more delicate work where you want better control of the glue - and which to apply less glue
•  Helpful Hint Buy and keep on hand more glue sticks than you image you will need - once melted the glue seems to go fast and you don't want to be running to your local Michael's in the middle of a work session
•  Larger glue sticks come in at least two lengths that I have encountered four inch and ten inch
•  Helpful Hint Go with the ten-inch length as you wont need to interrupt your work as often to insert another glue stick - a typical package will contain eight pieces
•  Helpful Hint Your glue gun will not function unless a glue stick is protruding out the back of the "barrel"
•  Helpful Hint Don't be in too much of a hurry to get started - give your glue gun ample time to heat up
• Helpful Hint Keep a scrap piece of wood on your workbench to prevent your gun from burning your workbench surface and to reduce the amount of hardened glue that must otherwise be plucked off your workbench surface.
• Helpful Hint Toss your scrap wood often so that you have a clean one to work with so that the glue does not stick to your gun when you rest it
• Watch Glue guns - at least for me - can get messy - glue accumulates on them and then when hardened looks ugly and cannot be removed
•  Helpful Hint  when your glue gun is hot, wipe it firmly against the corner of a wood block and then just throw the wood block away

IN CONCLUSION

Much was said above - sure you would have found out all the above without your blogger but why make mistakes by trial and error when you could rely on this essay instead? But more to the point, hot glue guns are great but if your first experience is painful and sloppy you might put away your glue gun and never use it again. Follow my tips above and you will use your hot glue gun over and over again.