Hot glue gun?

[Lord Vicious]

Hello my fellow Fett-fans!

I'm new to this hobby and thanks to the great info on this forum I'm learning new things every day. I'm getting started on my cardboard helmet soon, but I have one more question. A lot of you guys use a hot glue gun. I don't have any experience with this, so I was wondering what the benefit is of hot glue? Does it stick better? And should I use a special kind of hot glue (gun)?

Cheers!

 

[Devilstar2k2]

The only thing that I use hot glue for is attaching the visor to the inside of the helmet... Actually, now that I think about it, I also used hot glue for my screen mesh, and my son's circuit (on his Boba), by the keyslots. It holds very well, and you don't have to wait for it cure like other glue. All you have to do is wait anywhere from a few seconds, to about a minute, for it to cool. Just depends on how much glue you use. The type I use is a mini high-temp gun, it suits my purposes just fine.


-Shawn

 

[Lord Vicious]

Thanks for the info, mate!

 

[Dha Syntir]

Yeah, they're pretty handy sometimes, and you can pick them up at hardware stores, their prices starting around $10 and up. When you buy glue sticks for it, I tend to buy the industrial strength ones as they are tougher than the rest. And the best thing about them is that once you glue something, it's a near instant bond as devilstar said. That even beats some of the fast acting epoxy etc...I believe I'll be attaching my visor with hot glue as well-it'll make life alot easier without question. Either that or the "Welder Contact Adhesive" I just picked up at walmart, it's supposed to be pretty good for that sort of application. And easy to use as well.

 

[GCNgamer128]

Honestly, I've always hated hot glue guns, I always felt that they never held on very well. I prefer using Goop.

 

[Dha Syntir]

I can't find Goop anywhere for some reason, perhaps it's sold out due to all the Betty Crockers out there making Xmas decorations. I did find plumbing Goop, but it really wasn't worth messing with as it wouldn't adhere anything together very well. So I picked up a tube of "Welder" contact adhesive which was recommended to me by a couple folks. Hopefully it'll work better than the plumbing Goop, which really didn't work at all. I've heard that you should be careful when working with thin plastic/styrene etc as the heat can warp or downright melt what you're trying to glue together-a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way! Time to start assembling my gauntlets, wish me luck!