Glue Guns

About

Glue Guns Wattage decides how fast the gun melts glue and how long it keeps up, and it maps directly to the job. Mini guns at 15W suit craft work, small repairs and occasional use where the gun sits idle between beads. Heavy duty guns at 25W and above hold temperature through continuous work, and professional guns at 100W and 200W are for production or trade use where stopping to let the gun recover is not acceptable. Stick diameter is the specification that must match the tool, and mixing them is the most common mistake: mini guns take roughly 7mm to 8mm sticks and standard guns take 11.3mm to 12mm, so a stick that is too thin will not feed and one too thick will not fit at all. Check the tool before buying refills. Dual temperature sticks are worth knowing about because they let one gun work on both heat-sensitive materials at the lower setting and tougher substrates at the higher one. Stick length affects how often you reload rather than performance, so longer sticks and bulk bags suit heavy users. Expanding foam guns are a different product entirely, dispensing canister foam for filling gaps and sealing around frames with far more control than an aerosol nozzle, and a non-stick body is what makes one cleanable rather than disposable. Stanley is the widest range, with a mini trigger glue gun at 15W, a heavy duty gun at 25W, a FatMax hi output professional gun at 200W, and dual temp glue sticks in 7mm by 100mm and 11.3mm by 100mm in packs of 24. Bostik supplies a DIY hot melt glue gun and a Handy hot melt gun, and Draper a 100 watt Storm Force gun supplied with six sticks. Rapid makes GEN-T glue sticks at 12mm by 190mm in 1kg bags and Arrow mini sticks at 8mm by 102mm in packs of 24, with Faithfull supplying a heavy duty expanding foam gun with a full non stick body. For adhesives and sealants see Glue and Sealants & Adhesives .