With a little daughter, I figure I will need this a lot but haven't used one in 15 years. Current need it repairing hair accessories. Are they all basically the same for my need? Any recommendations?
The cheapy ones dribble and don't get the glue hot enough - it hardens too quickly. I bought a £30-ish Ryobi One+ glue gun, and it's been great - and not having to plug it in when you want to use it is fantastic. Not so cheap if you don't already have a battery and charger, though!
I have a couple of Ryobi One+ bits and bobs and they're really quite decent for the money (especially when you're buying the body alone).
I have a gas powered Lidl jobby. Does the job as long as u leave it sufficient time to heat up properly.
yea if you get one of the itty bitty el-cheap-o's they are not really worth it, get something that is sizeable, maybe has a name on it, and I prefer dual heat so you can use the standard glue or tougher stuff like acrylic. On that note anymore I find even a good glue gun to be a pain in the butt, I just cut a nittle nib off the stick and heat it up with my ~40$ hot air soldering station, much quicker and easier to control + no strings (and it works for heat shrink and oh yea soldering as well)
Ah, that is what the dual heat is about. I did look up some review/roundups but they tend to say "they are all good, use our Amazon links". The Ryobi One+ kit looks good but heavy. If I had any other their other stuff it would be a decent option but it is overkill for sure for my needs. Still, I want something solid, under £20.
yea with some of the acrylic stuff you stop gluing and start welding if used on standard issue plastics, and on everything else its fairly tough vs your normal PVA hot glue sticks, bag o 25 for a buck ... course with the heat required it can start melting the base material as well really quick
Mine was £2 (from the pound store?!?) and came with some non-descript sticks. It's fine, a bit rubbish but for occasional use I don't mind it. One thing I'd say is that with the cheap corded ones the flex is always fighting it, and the glue gun itself isn't heavy enough to counteract it's springy action. They need to be constantly held. If you're in a pinch you can just use a lighter to melt the sticks and glue stuff that way.
Personally I would stay away from cheap ones as I have had the heating elements blow up on me a couple of times. Moved to one that cost me ~£30 which works a treat.
Sorry for the mini-hijack (but may still be relevant if the OP goes for Ryobi One+ glue gun) I just picked up a triple tool pack (Driver, Impact and Circular) +1 free (Blower) and two 2Ah batteries on offer from B&Q and I am moving away from my Makita (non-XLT) that's giving up the ghost after years of use. Do those of you with Ryobi One+ tool have any recommendations on additional batteries? There are a lot of aftermarket suppliers, just looking at amazon with suppliers like "Biswaye" or "Vanon" who have 2 x 5Ah batteries for ~£50. That less than the price of a single 5Ah official one. Anyone got any experience / recommendations?
According to my order history, I bought this 4A one back in 2016, and I've had no problems. It's now unavailable, but it looks suspiciously like this one at £26 from a different seller. Had no problems charging it on an official charger, it hasn't asploded, but on the flipside I don't use the tools heavily enough to really know whether it's giving me 4Ah.
I have a couple of official batteries and haven't used third-party ones. Can't actually recall what capacity my batteries are tbh, but the tools don't get particularly heavy use in any event Is super handy having a second battery for mid-job swaps.
I've got one of the Steinel ones which usually lives with the fine nozzle attached. No problems with drips, heats up nice and quick, doesn't feel like bits are going to snap off in my hand, and the 'glue stick gripper' doesn't chew up the sticks if you are impatient and try and brute-force them through a cold nozzle, and has a nice silicone cable.
I'm now 7 tools deep in the Ryobi One+ system and a "supercharger" which I mianly brought because of the name and the fact ti hangs on the wall.
I've never bought batteries separately. I generally find since they're interchangeable it works out better value buying a tool you want anyway as a "kit" including official Ryobi batteries (along with others as bare-tools). We have 2x2.5Ah and 2x4Ah which came with included with a drill and a lawnmower respectively. That is enough for all the tools we have and worked out a lot cheaper than buying only bare-tools and batteries separately. I think unless you are doing a lot 2x2.5Ah with a fast charger alone will go a long way. This was the first thing I got and came to about £100 as kit with a combi drill and a case. If I was using tools for a long time generally by the time one battery is used up I found the other was more or less charged, and swapping between tools is easy. The 4Ah ones that came with the 36v lawnmower are very nice for the other tools, but not a game changer. They're also by their nature a bit heavier and bulkier than the 2.5Ah ones.
I have a pair of these for the lawnmower and bench tools, always handy to have the extra life they give when doing larger jobs.