Enthusiast builds a 3D printer that uses a hot glue gun — heavily modified Dremel glue gun surprisingly good at printing objects | Tom's Hardware

There are lots of different kinds and colors of glue sticks to explore.

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Maker Jón Schone recently showcased a slick new design that bridges the chasm between his first love of 3D printing - and hot glue guns. Earlier this week, on Schone’s YouTube channel ‘Proper Printing,’ we saw the maker conceptualize, iterate, and successfully build “a hot glue 3D printer.”

The work as presented provides viewers with an enjoyable ride, with several false dawns. But the project comes together brilliantly in the end. His glue stick magazine drop-feed system probably deserves a video all its own.

“Isn’t a 3D printer just a hot glue gun strapped to a motion controller?” quizzed Schone at the beginning of his video. Probably the most correct yet unsatisfying answer is ‘yes and no.’ A key difference is that 3D printers use specially formulated filament, not hot glue sticks.

But Schone mused that glue gun low-tech could benefit the world of 3D printers. He noted that mainstream 3D printers can’t print with soft materials without the expense of a pellet loader. Likewise, modern 3D printers are terrible at handling very brittle materials that cannot be spooled. A glue gun-style print head fed with sticks, chunks, or particles might help broaden 3D printing options (wax material is probably next on the test shortlist).

Hot glue guns also have some intrinsic attractions. Schone highlighted that there is already a vast range of glue stick formulations, colors, etc., which is of great appeal to creative makers. Hot glue guns can also be picked up for very little money (like this one for $5.95 at Amazon) for experimenting, refining, etc. Proper Printing decided to base his project on a Dremel hot glue gun to deliver workmanlike performance at an affordable price.

One of the first and most important steps in creating a practical hot glue gun 3D printer was to strip down the Dremel glue gun, dispose of the 230V heating element, and replace it with a safer and more controllable 24V 3D printer-style element. A necessary tweak was to set the nozzle thermals to 165 degrees Celsius, matching a glue gun’s typical temperatures.

Next, Schone worked through several extruder iterations, focusing on reliable output for 3D printing. ‘Heat creep’ was another big hurdle that the maker successfully conquered.

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Continuous glue stick feed to the print head seemed less of a challenge to Schone's skillset. The maker seemingly relished the design of a magazine feeding system, which plopped a new stick into a funnel-shaped receptacle to maintain a continuous glue feed in a delightfully Rube Goldberg fashion.

After several false dawns with Schone claiming he was “good to go,” the printer is seen to hit its stride only in the last few minutes of this engrossing 24-minute episode. Enjoying success with his refined hot glue gun 3D printer, Schone is now free to tinker some more. We already mentioned that he might try using wax material in the near future. The maker also pondered mixing hot glue with regular filament media prints—using the glue for infill, support, and more.

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

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