I'm Joel with Joel Creates, and this is a hot glue gun
Why would I build a gun that fires hot glue? A Youtuber by the name of Michael
Reeves recently posted a video where he built a hot glue gun as well. Here's what
he had to say about the project
Ding ding ding! It's the discarded after-birth of a shitty idea!
Oopsie-doopsie- sometimes it's not the
idea that's crap, it's just your execution
Here are my balls
I made a small mold out of aluminum to cast balls in
Each one of these is a hot glue ball
with some kind of metal in the center and then coated with epoxy
Half of these balls were made with glow-in-the dark hot glue
and half of them were made with
regular hot glue, and in the center of each I cast a small piece of metal
whether it's a BB, a washer, or a coiled piece of heating wire.
You might be wondering at this point why I went through all the trouble of making hot
glue balls. Well, as has already been pointed out by Mr. Reeves, hot glue is
very "viscous" and "thick"
Because of those reasons, it doesn't flow very easily even under high pressure
Even though hot glue is viscous and
thick when it's hot, when hot glue isn't hot, it's not viscous and thick
in fact it can be pretty smooth and slippery
A piece of hot glue at room temperature would be quite easy to fire out of something
If you could create a hot glue
projectile that had a hot center but a room-temperature exterior you could
potentially fire that projectile and have it burst on impact
releasing the hot glue. This is the concept that I tried to bring to life
with my design. The main challenge with this idea is finding a way to heat hot
glue from the inside out. This is where induction heating comes in.
Induction heating is the ability to heat certain metals with a magnetic field without
having to actually even touch them.
Induction heating will only work on certain types of metals
You could stick a piece of steel into a coil and watch
it glow red-hot and then you can stick a piece of hot glue into that same coil
and nothing would happen
You may have figured out at this point why I put a piece of metal in the center of every
hot glue ball: it's so that I could heat it from the inside out.
The piece of metal is heated by induction and then it passes that energy slowly from the
center towards the edges of the ball. The trick is to cook it for just the right
amount of time so the exterior doesn't become too soft or sticky but the
interior becomes hot enough that it will explode and release its hot glue on
impact. I started with a basic paintball gun. I modified the loading area to fit
the coil. I found a $20 induction coil circuit on Amazon. I mounted the
induction coil to the loading area of the gun. The induction coil is powered by
a 12-volt relay circuit on a timer. This allows me to program the coil kind of
like a microwave. I attached a cooling fan as well. The induction coil itself
tends to heat up a little bit from the amount of current passing through it so
the fan helps to keep the coil cool as well as the exterior of the ball.
The whole thing is powered by six 18650 lithium cells. 18650 lithium cells each
run at about 4.2 volts when fully charged. I have two parallel sets of
three cells running series. This gives us a maximum voltage of about 12.6
volts; perfect for our application. I also have a voltmeter added on the side
just to track the battery voltages. This is a pump-action paintball gun meaning
that it has a handle that you have to pump every time that you want to fire it
but the compressed air that shoots the projectile comes from a CO2 cartridge in
the handle. I removed the pump handle and replaced
it with the two battery cases. Building the gun itself only took me about half a
day, but refining the balls themselves was an incredibly repetitious
and arduous process. I initially wanted the balls to be made of only hot glue
and the heating element but I soon found that it was incredibly difficult to
evenly heat the inside of the ball without the hot glue spilling out of the
edges, and as soon as it spilled out of the edges then it became impossible to
fire without gumming up the entire assembly. The reason I chose epoxy is
because it is strong and slightly brittle once it's dry. I wanted something
that would hold all the glue in, have some heat resistance, and then be able to
break easily on impact. One of the problems that I've had is with the balls
striking a target and bouncing off. This may be due to some sort of a
non-newtonian reaction: the high speed and intensity of
impact may temporarily cause the hot glue to shift from being a liquid to behaving
more like a solid. Many of my test shots would bounce off their target and then
land and stick to something else. This is where I got the idea to attach several
blades to the front of the gun. These blades were meant to help shred the glue
ball after it leaves the gun. This is to help increase the surface area of the
projectile and help it spread out somewhat like a shotgun
After many revisions I was finally able to get this thing to work
We'll throw some of these against a piece of granite and we'll see what sticks
(Terminator impression) Sarah Connor
Woah...my aim was way off with that one
It's definitely nice and melty
X gon' glue it to ya
Just not sticking where it should
Damn right and I glue it again!
(Terminator impression) Prepare to be... laminated
(Yoda impression) Glue or glue not, there is no try
By the way, just for reference here's one of my glue balls versus a paintball
This one didn't have enough heat in it to really get hot enough
This thing looks absolutely stupidly dangerous especially with the
blades on front.. just looks like a lia-frickin-bility.
I just pointed it at my head, I'm an idiot
Alright maybe it's not the most
efficient design but it's a gun that fires hot glue. At the very least we have
a solid proof of concept with this
This thing kind of works. It shoots hot glue projectiles and sometimes they even
stick to their target. These things are
coming out of here at probably 250 feet per second. I don't exactly know how far
this will shoot because I don't want my neighbors to call the cops on me when I
walk outside with this.
(Terminator impression) Hasta la vista, baby
(Reeves) You guys keep pumping them out
one after the other shitty ideas in my god damn comments; You should make a
hot glue gun that actually shoots hot glue; It sucks ass, it doesn't shoot hot glue
I like poking fun at Michael Reeves people who have become popular from
their creative endeavors are easy targets because everyone sees them
The truth is anyone who's ever worked in any kind of an engineering field can tell
you that just because a problem can be solved that doesn't mean it should be
solved. Michael was able to take an idea and turn it into a funny video and
that's something that's admirable, but I just couldn't let the idea go. I think
it's because hot glue for so many people is the gateway into do-it-yourself
projects. Not only that, but building things that fire other things is just
something that so many creators love to engage in. Firing hot glue? It's the
embodiment of the makers spirit and that's why I just had to figure out a
way to do this even though it was a crap-load of effort. So Michael, if you're
watching this: hey, dude, look I get it I'm not trying to be a dick. It made a funny
video, you deprecated your audience, you deprecated yourself; everyone gets off on
a little self and subscriber deprecation now and then...
or all the time... in every video... constantly... See? I can do it too!
I hope you enjoyed the video and my music and the glue gun and me riding on
Michael's coattails and...
Consider subscribing! I'll catch you next time!
If you want to know how I got that opening shot of the gun
It was by using my CNC machine as a time-lapse slider
I've got a stepper motor over there that rotated the camera.
Here's a time-lapse of that time-lapse
It's amazing the things you
can do with a 3-axis machine like a CNC machine or a 3D printer
Who knows? Maybe I'll program it next time to feed me tomatoes or something like that