Hot Melt Glue Question

[Richard Madison]

One wishes to glue together two oddly shaped, finish sanded pieces. The method chosen to clamp the pieces together is to attach some scrap pieces to each with hot-melt glue, and clamp the two work pieces together with multiple rubber bands around the hot-melt glued scraps (page 172). After the glue between the work pieces sets, the rubber bands are removed, and the scrap pieces are removed by softening the hot melt glue with a hair dryer, heat gun, or whatever.

So finally to my question, how does one remove the remaining hot melt glue from the work piece without damaging the work or leaving any residue? Recall, the work piece has already been finish sanded.

Will do a small test on this tomorrow for self, but imagine that y’all already know the answer. Thanks for your help.

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Richard, I've done something like what you describe, but not with finish-sanded surfaces. Hot melt will become almost brittle when cold. A sharp rap with a hammer usually separates it from a smooth surface. I would however be a little nervous about doing this with "finished" surfaces. You could experiment with a scrap sample by placing it in a freezer for a while.

[Richard Madison]

Malcolm, Thanks for your response! Assumed that your ribbon pieces (half bowls, etc.) were finished sanded before assembling the ribbon. Just had to try one, from scrap oak salvaged from a pallet. Apparently cutting the compound angles is the easy part.

Meanwhile, test in progress. Hot melt sticks to finish sanded with sanding sealer surfaces. Alignment problems w/ rubberband "clamps", but bench vise on one side and spring clamp on other side applied to test joint.

Will try freezer trick tomorrow to remove residual hot melt. It may just pop right off.

Thanks again!

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Richard, when I first started doing ribbons (the second one is in my book), I used hot melt to temporarily secure glue blocks. The hassle with removing residue forced me to find another way. I now use bolted on clamps which hold rubber bands. Here’s a photo.

[Richard Madison]

Thanks, Malcolm! That looks just like the clamps I mentally designed while physically scraping glue off my test piece today.