Glue guns for dummies

[mczoo]

well, i am sad to say i have no experience with a glue gun..

prior to this i used aquarium sealant(geosol/silicone or whatever you call it) for the same purpose the rest of you are using glue guns

anthing to know?

should i use a special gun or glue?

Thanks

Sean

 

[VerteX]

There's nothing complicated about glue guns. They heat a specially manufactured acrylic stick, the stick melts and comes out of the tip. There are differences between gun temperatures as well as stick melting temperatures. If you go to home improvement store, you can easily figure out what brand does what. Both the sticks and the gun should be around $20 - $25. They are a bliss to have. Especially perfect for building aerated cricket containers.

 

[Dankmeleon]

don't cheap out on your gun is my advice, get one with at least an 8 foot cord if not cordless. you'll find that hot glue is much easier to use than almost every type of glue because it instantly stays in place in less than 10, super glue takes a few minutes to dry and if there is tension on an object during that 10 minutes it will move

there are a million and 1 ways to be creative with a hot glue gun in your cham enclosure. a problem I ran into was I was spending way too much on fake vines, I'm now doing a combination of 1/4 rubber tubing and vines to cut my vine cost in half as I expand, the tubing isn't as pliable as the vines and don't really stay in place unless they are taught(like a rope) hot glue is the perfect solution to throwing one end up and quickly putting together a vertical play pen for 40 cents a foot retail

 

[mczoo]

thanks

look out the glue gunning is going to start

Sean

 

[dj special k]

It feels funny when you're not paying attention and the hot glue comes out and drips onto your skin. It's even more funny when you try and rub it off with the other hand and you end up burning both hands or both parts of your skin... AND you spread it out more on your skin.... Then... all you gotta do is just bear the heat for a few seconds until it cools down and hardens. hahahahahaha. you can't help but cuss yourself out at the beginning... but once you get to the cooling off drying phase on your skin... the only thing left to do is laugh at yourself... and hopefully nobody else was there to see that happen.

oh... and did i forget to tell you how smart i am? ha...

 

[Tygerr]

Glue guns are indeed the bomb... You'll be using them for tons of things from now on.

prior to this i used aquarium sealant(geosol/silicone or whatever you call it) for the same purpose the rest of you are using glue guns

Just whatever you do... don't do it the other way around (i.e. don't use hot glue for what you would have used aquarium sealant for). I learnt the hard way. The hot glue seems to melt into the cracks easily and make quite a nice sealant (particularly between wood boards or plastics), but over time it hardens up and gets brittle, and splits away from the surface making it quite leaky indeed...

 

[mczoo]

Important safety tip

Thanks Tygerr

I had a 125gallon tanks let lose on me once and salt water to boot

 

[JoshCrane1]

i reallly hate the "cobbwebb" effect of hot glueing, it gets everywhere and its hard to see, oh well its still the shit.