Marshall said,
Does anybody know how to get in touch with Susan Chenoweth? <<
Hi Marshall,
I can’t help you with Susan’s where-abouts, the last time I
‘talked’ to her she had some kind of an emergency. Maybe it’s
not over.
Maybe I can help you with your problem though.
Based on my observations of about 8 or 9 different brands of
glue guns, there basically 2 styles of heating elements used in
all guns. One with removable tips & one with an intergal tip. The
removable tips are screwed into the heating element & changing
them when they’re hot would be a problem. Letting them cool so
they could be changed would be an inconvenience.
Unless you only want to use 1 pastry tip on the wax(glue) gun
what I’d do is the following, it allows you to change pastry tips
with ease & doesn’t require any special copper/brass fittings.
The instructions are necessarily vague as far as tip retention
dimensions go, since they are dependent on the type of glue gun
you have. However, the methodology will work for any gun.
-
The pastry tips are longer from top to bottom than the gun
tip. To make the pastry tip closer in length to the gun tip, cut
the tip off about 3/4 in back from the end. A 2/0 saw blade
worked for me. -
The angle of most pastry tips is not the same as the glue gun
tip. This will allow wax to ozze out the back end of the pastry
tip, if not prevented. This can be prevented by placing a rubber
‘O’ ring around the end of the gun tip. Get one that goes around
the tip about 1/4 in from the end. Most hardware stores have ‘O’
ring ($.25-.50) assortments. If you have a choice, get a silicon
rubber (red color), it takes the heat better. When the pastry tip
is placed over the gun tip & ‘O’ ring, the pastry tip bottom
should not contact the gun body. If it does, cut more off the
pastry tip. -
Make a wire ring that will go around the pastry tip, but not
slide off the bottom. It shouldn’t be so near the other end that
it interferes with the extruded wax either. -
To this ring, attach a coil spring or some device of your own
fashioning that will go from the tip around the back end of the
glue gun or clip into a convenient recess some where on the body
of the gun. The coil spring doesn’t have to go all the way around
the gun from one side of the ring to the other, wire can be used
for part of the distance. The spring must be strong enough to
keep the wax from comming out the back end of the pastry tip. Get
the spring (<$2.50) at the hardware store.
5A. Put the ‘O’ ring on the gun tip.
5B. Put the pastry tip on the gun tip, covering the ‘O’ ring.
5C. Put the retainer ring over the pastry tip.
5D. Place the retainer around the back of the gun or clip it into its
latching locations. 5E. Put the wax stick in the gun. 5F. Apply power
to the gun. When wax reaches melting temperature, let the creative
juices flow!
Hope this helps,
Dave