RC tips – How to easily remove hot glue

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We RC'ers all love hot glue.  Imagine what we would do without it!  I am sure there would be another glue of choice for repairs and such but hot glue certainly has established itself as a staple in the field box and garages of most RC pilots.  With all the benefits of using hot glue, it has at least one important downside that makes for being sure of where you are gluing on your foam plane and that is that it is very hard to remove once it has set.

In our quick RC tip for today however, we want to highlight a very nice trick to loosen or even help remove hot glue from foam or any other type of surface you need to get cleaned up.  It involves using canned air.  Of course when we were all little boys and girls running around, we all loved to turn a can of canned air upside down and freeze things with it.  Everyone knows the properties of canned air when you do this.  We can actually use this to our advantage with removing hot glue.

Of hot glue's many properties, one thing it doesn't stand up very well under is extreme temperatures either way, hot or cold.  However, with hot, it simply goes back to its gooey state of flux.  Cold on the other hand is a different story.  When hot glue gets extremely cold, it becomes brittle.  We can use this to our advantage with removing it!

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Simply turn your canned air upside down where it is spraying liquid and freezes.  Soak your hot glue joint or any other surface with hot glue on it with the freezing liquid as it comes out.  After a few seconds, the hot glue will be extremely brittle!  I like to take needle nose pliers and grab hold of the frozen hot glue and break it loose piece by piece.

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