Hot melt glue sticks?

mike · Mar 5, 2015

Back in the day, I had some hot-melt glue sticks
that were low viscosity when hot but rather
hard when cold. Similar to the stuff they use to
tame vibration in big caps on circuit boards.
Worked in a standard "craft" glue gun.

Regular craft glue sticks are too soft for my application.

There are a zillion kinds of glue sticks available,
but the data doesn't give me any clues as to how
hard they are.

Recommendation for cheap glue sticks that can work
in a standard craft glue gun and are somewhat harder
than the typical craft sticks?

Mar 5, 2015

mike <ham789@netzero.net> wrote:

Recommendation for cheap glue sticks that can work in a standard craft
glue gun and are somewhat harder than the typical craft sticks?

A little Googling leads me to
http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/44021O/scotch-weldtm-hot-melt-bonding-systems-guide.pdf
; the second page gives some recommended 3M part numbers for hot melt
for electronics. Digi-Key seems to stock most of those part numbers in
small quantities; it's up to you to decide if they are cheap. 3M also
has detailed spec sheets on those part numbers, including Shore hardness
values.

Standard disclaimers apply: I don't get money or other consideration
from any companies mentioned.

Matt Roberds

Trevor Wilson · Mar 5, 2015

On 5/03/2015 1:31 PM, mike wrote:

Back in the day, I had some hot-melt glue sticks
that were low viscosity when hot but rather
hard when cold. Similar to the stuff they use to
tame vibration in big caps on circuit boards.
Worked in a standard "craft" glue gun.

Regular craft glue sticks are too soft for my application.

There are a zillion kinds of glue sticks available,
but the data doesn't give me any clues as to how
hard they are.

Recommendation for cheap glue sticks that can work
in a standard craft glue gun and are somewhat harder
than the typical craft sticks?

**IME, Bostik and 3M make the best glue sticks. The cheap stuff is crap.

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

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John-Del · Mar 5, 2015

**IME, Bostik and 3M make the best glue sticks. The cheap stuff is crap.

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

Exactly. The stuff companies like 3M, Bostik, Dow, etc. sell is always more expensive, but they make superior stuff worth the extra cost when performance is the main target.

N_Cook · Mar 5, 2015

On 05/03/2015 02:31, mike wrote:

Back in the day, I had some hot-melt glue sticks
that were low viscosity when hot but rather
hard when cold. Similar to the stuff they use to
tame vibration in big caps on circuit boards.
Worked in a standard "craft" glue gun.

Regular craft glue sticks are too soft for my application.

There are a zillion kinds of glue sticks available,
but the data doesn't give me any clues as to how
hard they are.

Recommendation for cheap glue sticks that can work
in a standard craft glue gun and are somewhat harder
than the typical craft sticks?

I started to make my own harder formulation, then found a couple of Kg
in a surplus store.
I cut up plastic supermarket milk containers, sans labels and caps,
until they would break-up further in a motorised grinder. I would then
have pushed the flakes into a hot-melt glue gun to extrude out string.
Then when cold twist that into "rods".

While on hotmelt. I seem to have broken a glue gun, quite a loud bang. I
wanted to change colour of glue stick , so switched on , but did not
leave warming-up for long enough before extracting the stick. I must
have cracked the ceramic of the wire-wound resistor and a few minutes
later , bang.

mike · Mar 5, 2015

On 3/5/2015 2:20 AM, N_Cook wrote:

On 05/03/2015 02:31, mike wrote:
Back in the day, I had some hot-melt glue sticks
that were low viscosity when hot but rather
hard when cold. Similar to the stuff they use to
tame vibration in big caps on circuit boards.
Worked in a standard "craft" glue gun.

Regular craft glue sticks are too soft for my application.

There are a zillion kinds of glue sticks available,
but the data doesn't give me any clues as to how
hard they are.

Recommendation for cheap glue sticks that can work
in a standard craft glue gun and are somewhat harder
than the typical craft sticks?

I started to make my own harder formulation, then found a couple of Kg
in a surplus store.
I cut up plastic supermarket milk containers, sans labels and caps,
until they would break-up further in a motorised grinder. I would then
have pushed the flakes into a hot-melt glue gun to extrude out string.
Then when cold twist that into "rods".

While on hotmelt. I seem to have broken a glue gun, quite a loud bang. I
wanted to change colour of glue stick , so switched on , but did not
leave warming-up for long enough before extracting the stick. I must
have cracked the ceramic of the wire-wound resistor and a few minutes
later , bang.

thanks for the inputs.
I really don't need much performance from my glue sticks, just some that
harden slightly harder.

Interesting about the milk cartons. I remember once cutting them into
narrow strips and using a small butane hot air gun to layer them onto
the thing I was fixing. You can do the same thing with the old-school
BIC clear plastic pen housings. I should try that again.

Bob E. · Mar 5, 2015

> Interesting about the milk cartons.

Do you mean milk "jugs"? Those 1-gallon square-ish containers for milk and
water and such? This is polyethylene, yes?

mike · Mar 5, 2015

On 3/5/2015 7:30 AM, Bob E. wrote:

Interesting about the milk cartons.

Do you mean milk "jugs"? Those 1-gallon square-ish containers for milk and
water and such? This is polyethylene, yes?

recycle code sez HDPE

Bob E. · Mar 5, 2015

> recycle code sez HDPE

Yeah, high-density polyethylene.

So more plastic welding than gluing...

Nice alternative. Thanks for the idea.

N_Cook · Mar 5, 2015

On 05/03/2015 15:30, Bob E. wrote:

Interesting about the milk cartons.

Do you mean milk "jugs"? Those 1-gallon square-ish containers for milk and
water and such? This is polyethylene, yes?

yerp.
The professionals use office-grade paper shredders for the macerating
part of the process.

Michael Black · Mar 6, 2015

On Thu, 5 Mar 2015, Trevor Wilson wrote:

On 5/03/2015 1:31 PM, mike wrote:
Back in the day, I had some hot-melt glue sticks
that were low viscosity when hot but rather
hard when cold. Similar to the stuff they use to
tame vibration in big caps on circuit boards.
Worked in a standard "craft" glue gun.

Regular craft glue sticks are too soft for my application.

There are a zillion kinds of glue sticks available,
but the data doesn't give me any clues as to how
hard they are.

Recommendation for cheap glue sticks that can work
in a standard craft glue gun and are somewhat harder
than the typical craft sticks?

**IME, Bostik and 3M make the best glue sticks. The cheap stuff is crap.

The cheap stuff seems to work fine.

What it doesn't do is define itself, and of course, it's cheap and readily
available.

Go elsewhere, and you do likely find more details on the package, so then
you can tell this glue stick from that glue stick.

I am amazed by the variety of caulking one can find at a good hardware
store. A wide variety, it would take some time to figure out what's what.

Presumably that sort of thing exists for glue guns, in the right places.

Michael

Michael Black · Mar 6, 2015

On Thu, 5 Mar 2015, Bob E. wrote:

Interesting about the milk cartons.

Do you mean milk "jugs"? Those 1-gallon square-ish containers for milk and
water and such? This is polyethylene, yes?

I'm sure's talking about actual jugs, a thin "plastic", rather than a
waxed cardboard that would seem to be what's used in "milk cartons".

I remember DOn Lancaster talking about 3D printing quite some time ago,
except as I was reminded recently, he called it a "Santa Claus Machine".

I'm sure he used a hot glue gun at least for demonstration purposes.

I'm sure there probably are still homemade 3D printers that use them. If
so, that's another place to look. They need the "raw material" for the
feed, what are they using? The process I've read does sound like what was
mentioned earlier about grinding up existing plastic, but I can't remember
what they did with the ground up stuff.

I've also read about melting styrofoam and I think plastic coffee stirrers
with acetone, though I'm not blank about what the point was. But that
might lead somewhere.

Michael

Michael Black · Mar 6, 2015

On Thu, 5 Mar 2015, Bob E. wrote:

recycle code sez HDPE

Yeah, high-density polyethylene.

So more plastic welding than gluing...

Nice alternative. Thanks for the idea.

And there's that stuff, I can't remember what, that
"glues" by melting the plastic together, rather than
gluing. I think it had "methyl" in the name.

Michael

Dave Platt · Mar 6, 2015

In article <alpine.LNX.2.02.1503051538180.30589@darkstar.example.org>,
Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:

And there's that stuff, I can't remember what, that
"glues" by melting the plastic together, rather than
gluing. I think it had "methyl" in the name.

Methyl Ethyl Ketone (a.k.a. MEK) perhaps?

In many cases, toluene or acetone can be used in the same way.

A lot of the glues for acrylic, polystyrene, etc. are just this sort
of solvent, in which is dissolved some amount of the base plastic
(thickens the glue, improves the ability to fill small gaps which is
pretty much nil in a pure-solvent "glue").

Some people make up their own "goopy" glue for acrylic by simply
dumping a bunch of plexiglas chips, shards, shavings, and dust into a
clean jar, pouring in enough of the appropriate solvent to cover, and
letting the acrylic dissolve.

whit3rd · Mar 6, 2015

On Thursday, March 5, 2015 at 12:37:26 PM UTC-8, Michael Black wrote:

On Thu, 5 Mar 2015, Bob E. wrote:

recycle code sez HDPE

Yeah, high-density polyethylene.

So more plastic welding than gluing...

And there's that stuff, I can't remember what, that
"glues" by melting the plastic together, rather than
gluing. I think it had "methyl" in the name.

Lots of cold-weld 'glue' for plastics (acrylic and polycarbonate, and
maybe others) is based on methylene chloride. That is also sold
(or used to be) in paint remover and carburetor cleaner. It's
best used with ventilation (outdoors), and isn't generally recommended
for home use.

Fred McKenzie · Mar 7, 2015

In article <alpine.LNX.2.02.1503051532320.30589@darkstar.example.org>,
Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:

I've also read about melting styrofoam and I think plastic coffee stirrers
with acetone, though I'm not blank about what the point was. But that
might lead somewhere.

Michael-

Could you be thinking of homemade coil dope?
<http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Coil-Dope/>

I'm not sure what the hardness of the resulting material would be, but
certainly harder than a styrofoam coffee cup or packing peanuts!

Fred

Michael Black · Mar 7, 2015

On Fri, 6 Mar 2015, Fred McKenzie wrote:

In article <alpine.LNX.2.02.1503051532320.30589@darkstar.example.org>,
Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:

I've also read about melting styrofoam and I think plastic coffee stirrers
with acetone, though I'm not blank about what the point was. But that
might lead somewhere.

Michael-

Could you be thinking of homemade coil dope?
http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Coil-Dope/

Yes. Though when I read about it, it was decades ago, and in a magazine.

Michael

I'm not sure what the hardness of the resulting material would be, but
certainly harder than a styrofoam coffee cup or packing peanuts!

Fred

Chris Jones · Mar 7, 2015

On 06/03/2015 02:14, mike wrote:

On 3/5/2015 2:20 AM, N_Cook wrote:
On 05/03/2015 02:31, mike wrote:
Back in the day, I had some hot-melt glue sticks
that were low viscosity when hot but rather
hard when cold. Similar to the stuff they use to
tame vibration in big caps on circuit boards.
Worked in a standard "craft" glue gun.

Regular craft glue sticks are too soft for my application.

There are a zillion kinds of glue sticks available,
but the data doesn't give me any clues as to how
hard they are.

Recommendation for cheap glue sticks that can work
in a standard craft glue gun and are somewhat harder
than the typical craft sticks?

I started to make my own harder formulation, then found a couple of Kg
in a surplus store.
I cut up plastic supermarket milk containers, sans labels and caps,
until they would break-up further in a motorised grinder. I would then
have pushed the flakes into a hot-melt glue gun to extrude out string.
Then when cold twist that into "rods".

While on hotmelt. I seem to have broken a glue gun, quite a loud bang. I
wanted to change colour of glue stick , so switched on , but did not
leave warming-up for long enough before extracting the stick. I must
have cracked the ceramic of the wire-wound resistor and a few minutes
later , bang.

thanks for the inputs.
I really don't need much performance from my glue sticks, just some that
harden slightly harder.

Interesting about the milk cartons. I remember once cutting them into
narrow strips and using a small butane hot air gun to layer them onto
the thing I was fixing. You can do the same thing with the old-school
BIC clear plastic pen housings. I should try that again.

I found this recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0zpqhhcmp4

Mar 9, 2015

On Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 9:32:06 PM UTC-5, mike wrote:

Back in the day, I had some hot-melt glue sticks
that were low viscosity when hot but rather
hard when cold. Similar to the stuff they use to
tame vibration in big caps on circuit boards.
Worked in a standard "craft" glue gun.

Regular craft glue sticks are too soft for my application.

There are a zillion kinds of glue sticks available,
but the data doesn't give me any clues as to how
hard they are.

Recommendation for cheap glue sticks that can work
in a standard craft glue gun and are somewhat harder
than the typical craft sticks?

With plexiglass for instance what would be an appropriate solvent? Lenny

whit3rd · Mar 10, 2015

On Sunday, March 8, 2015 at 4:16:32 PM UTC-7, captainvi...@gmail.com wrote:

> With plexiglass for instance what would be an appropriate solvent? Lenny

Plexiglas is the Rohm and Haas trademark for acrylic (methyl methacrylate) plastic.
It cold-welds with methylene chloride, and there are some reports that acetone (methyl hydrate)
also works.

Here's a good commercial methylene chloride product...

<http://www.tapplastics.com/product/repair_products/plastic_adhesives/tap_acrylic_cement/130>

Hot melt glue sticks?

mike

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