How to Easily Remove Hot Glue

In this video I will show you how to cleanly (and easily) remove hot glue (aka hotmelt) from nearly any surface.

Long story short - use Isopropyl Alcohol

This is a little trick I learned over 20 years ago. When searching on the net, I was surprised to see that nobody knew about this (or at least they hadn't posted about it), so I made this video.

Hopefully it helps some of you. Check out some of the comments in my video. It has helped many other people and their comments have made my day on numerous occasions!

Troubleshooting Tip: If at first it does not seem to be working, wait a minute for the alcohol to work its magic. Continue to add a little more alcohol as you work the hot glue off so it will break its bond.

Thanks to Reddit user "pyridine" who provided the following explanation for why this works:

Vinyl acetate resins are soluble in isopropanol, so I suppose a vinyl acetate/ethylene copolymer could easily be as well. The polymer chains are simply dissolving and losing their solid structure at the edges where you apply isopropanol, which is changing the nature of the adhesive surface between the glue and an object.

The polymer chains are now solubilized (completely surrounded at a molecular level) by isopropanol molecules which is preventing their strong interaction with the metal/wood/whatever.