JustJimAZ

OK, you've been using hot glue for a minute now and you are wondering what uses it has beyond binding craft sticks together?



If you only buy your glue sticks at Walmart, you may not be aware that you can get hot glue is pretty much every color!

I find black glue to be nice for stuff I am going to base coat black anyway. I've used metallic colors to make purely cosmetic "weld" lines. You could use red to make veins, white/off white for teeth, pink for gums, whatever! I guess glitter glue is probably for Christmas stuff? Dunno. I never use that. :-)

If you do decide to use multiple colors in your projects, you might consider buying them in mini sticks and getting a bunch of cheap guns so you don't have to swap out colors.

I found some guns in a local market for about $2 each, so I can go from black to pink to white quickly. More than that, you should really never pull hot glue BACK out of a gun, as it can get inside the workings and gum stuff up. So you'd have to use the whole stick before putting in a new color. For quite a while, you'll end up with a mix of the two glue colors too. I find it much better to just use multiple guns.

If you find you have glued a piece down and you now need to move it, your heat gun is your friend! You can melt the glue and move the piece pretty easily. You may need to clean up some residue, of course. Personally, I also use a heat gun to help clean up the spiderwebs of hot glue that plague every project. I hit the gossamer strands with the gun and for the most part they just fade away. MUCH faster and easier than plucking them one by one.


Did you know you can make simple molds out of hot glue? A little candle wax brushed onto your original acts as a release, and you can make a copy of just about anything that can take the heat! Weird example - need a TON of chicken bones for your voodoo queen or whatever? Mold a few nice ones and make a million copies!
Bonus tip: Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty is an amazing, inexpensive, and simple to use material to cast with! Just add water, Use very little water for rock hard pieces. More water makes it pourable.


Of course, you can also cast objects out of hot glue! Any silicone mold works well for this. Just put in some kind of release, fill the mold with hot glue, and let it cool. It should be obvious that you do NOT want to try to cast anything out of hot glue in a mold made from hot glue. Release or not, this will not end well!

You can try sand casting too! This is especially great if you want the end product to look like cast iron. Fence finials, for instance. Basically:
Put sand in a container.
Get it wet.
Press the object into the wet sand.
Pack the sand around the object down.
Remove the object.
Fill the depression with hot lead or hot glue or whatever medium.
Let it cool or harden, then remove the cast and knock the sand off. No release agent necessary.

The finer the sand, the better the mold. The harder you pack the sand around the original, the better the result.

If you are going to cast a bunch of objects from hot glue, consider just melting your glue in a little pot set aside for the purpose. It will be faster and easier and it will reduce wear and tear on the heating elements in your glue gun! Some places actually sell hot glue pellets just for this! You can make your own with a knife, of course. ;-)


You really should not plan to use hot glue for anything "structural". In other words, sticking light decorative pieces onto something may be fine, but it's not up to the task of anything more strenuous. In the heat of the Sonoran Desert, most hot glue will soften enough that even holding bits onto a wreath will fall apart. Ask me how I know! HOWEVER, THERE IS AN ANSWER!

AcriLux® Hot Melt Glue Sticks are pure acrylic resin. This stuff does not even soften under 165 degrees Fahrenheit! Even Yuma does not get that hot. This stuff will stick to almost anything and hold it well! I would still advise a "mechanical" bod too, like screws, wires, rivets, but this is a great glue for AZ temperatures.

Did you know you can use hot glue as a kind of clamp? Say you want to bond two pieces together. You want to use Crazy Glue or E-6000 but you don't want to sit and hold the two pieces together until it cures. So, you put the glue you want on the piece, then you put hot glue around that and press the two pieces together. The hot glue will harden quickly and hold the pieces together until the "real glue" cures.

Are you sick of constantly reloading your gun? First, you can buy hot glue in 5 foot rolls! That's a lot of glue. However, maybe it's not in the right color. You can glue one hot glue stick to another - with hot glue - and make a stick about as long as you like. Pretty cool.


Finally, hot glue can be used on your electronic projects. Hot glue is a pretty good insulator, so a dab will effectively prevent a short. It is also waterproof, so it can be used to cover anything you want to protect from moisture. Obviously, if the object is going to get hot, this might not be the ideal solution. When I was working an a solid state relay factory, we used silicone for the insulator/waterproofer because heat was an issue. On your LED spotlights, however, hot glue may be just the cheap and easy way to go!

Got some more "pro tips"?
I'd love to hear them.

Happy Halloween!