Good morning, good evening wherever you may be in the world!
I have a question about heat guns.
1.) what is the most common application for a heat gun
2.) What heat gun do you have or have used and what were the pros + cons?
Your input is very important, enjoy the topic!
Cheers,
tools.are.life x
I have a milwaukee, its must be about 20 years old and only gets occasional use. I used to use it for heat shrink tubing but its too much for that application so I got a small hobby craft one (about the size of a dremel) I now use for heat shrink. I use the full side Milwaukee for things like forming plastic ABS sheets to conform to a shape or bending PVC pipe. I also used it when I rolled my fenders to soften up the paint so it wouldn’t crack. Oh almost forgot, I’ve used it to melt the ice build up in a frost free freezer before.
I have an off brand I bought about fifteen years ago, “Heat Pro Delux” I believe its called. I use it infrequently mostly for paint removal. Pros are it makes removing paint much easier than scraping. I don’t have any particular cons except it might be a bit slow but that’s not the heat gun’s fault. Removing paint by any means is a nasty job.
I have a Wagner 1000 heat gun. It’s for removing paint, not very expensive, but I’ve used it for other things. Most recently was to soften pvc in order to make it fit in a dust collection system. Also will remove some stickers etc, if they are on reasonably heat resistant materials.
I have the Harbor Freight one. It has worked great. I use when I work with sprinkler fittings to expand and help bend the Poly pipes. I also used a bit when working on a ballast system on my boat for the same purpose. I think it’s 1500 watts.
I hope that helps, Steve.
Ha! That freezer idea is great! Rather than chipping and scraping.
heck yeah much better then chipping the ice out. I hate to admit it, but once I ruined a small dorm type of refrig buy puncturing the coil with a screwdriver trying to chip out the ice. This while I thought I was going slow and careful. Never again will I try to chip out ice.
I have a Dremel VersaTip 2000 model, Butane flame tool. It does what most Butane torches do, but it’s mostly for soldering/desoldering things. It has tips to use it as a heat gun, like a narrowing tip for doing heat shrink tubing, and a large flat foil for heating up and removing paint. It has a heat deflector so you can use it for radiant heat, supposedly this is for low-temperature heat shrink tubing. I’ve used it to repair a hole that melted in a thermoplastic component on a lamp.
Theoretically, Heat Guns are supposed to be for heat shrink tubing, paint removal, and thermoplastic applications. But, as you can see from all these other responses, they are used for difficult situations, then put away until needed again.
Mostly for paint removal, but the corded ones, the new cordless ones do not seem like that they are made for this purpose.