DIYbanter - View Single Post - Hot Glue Melted in Sunshine in Automobile

Jim Yanik

gregz wrote in

rg:

wrote:
On Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:10:05 -0700 (PDT), "hr(bob) "
wrote:

This is a first for me.

I repaired the hinge area of the pushbutton on my wife's garage door
opener (about the size of a pack of cigarettes) as the plastic
pushbutton hinge had cracked off. I used a new piece of plastic and
hot glue. My wife just came in from outside and said she could not
get the garage door to come down as she was leaving. I told her I
would check. When I pushed on the button, the indicator light did
not come on, and the button did not seem to even move. After some
time with a knife, I was able to get the cover off, and discovered
that the hot glue from the hinge repair had melted and run all over
the inside of the opener, including along the edges of the
microswitch that operated the opener. That esplained the problem.

The car was outside yesterday afternoon in the sunny area of our
dirveway and I guess things were hotter than the glue melting
temperature. A few minutes with a knife and a soldering iron (to
melt some of the glue the knife did not reach) removed enough of the
glue to make it possible to repair again, this time using
fast-setting epoxy that I am pretty sure will not soften in the
heat. Whatever glue is left should not be enough to cause any
further complications, and hopefully the epoxy will hold next winter
when temps can get down to zero if we leave the car out.

This is no surprise. Hot glue WILL melt in hot sun. It's not
intended for such uses. It's mostly just for crafts that are not
exposed to weather. Personally I find little use for it, but craft
persons use it a lot. Epoxy is a better choice. They do make epoxy
specifically for plastic. I've used it and was satisfied. Regular
epoxy may not work well on many plastics.

Sometimes I use it to hold something together for applying something
good.

Greg

Liquid Nails construction adhesive works even on some plastics.
it won't melt in the sun,either!

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com