Easily Remove Dried Hot Glue (aka Hot Melt)

video Easily Remove Dried Hot Glue (aka Hot Melt)

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

I literally stumbled on this while working with hot glue over 20 years ago at a previous job. It ended up being a "major discovery" for how we conducted our "re-work" on defective parts.

After a bit of research on the net I was surprised that even today I can't find anyone else that is aware of this solution. I found that most people are using much more harsh chemicals. That prompted me to create this quick Instructable and share the knowledge.

Long story short - use Isopropyl Alcohol

By John Mangan (siliconghost)
http://www.manganlabs.com

Please RATE my Instructable! If you like this, check out my other Instructables by clicking my username (siliconghost) above.

Background music by 8bitpeoples
http://www.8bitpeoples.com/
Album: Claps and Leads
Song: Funktify

kmpjayhawks says: May 5, 2011. 12:47 PM

We used the alcohol on the painted walls and brick to remove the hot glue, it worked great. It did remove a little paint which was fine because we are repainting. I work at a school and we had to remove alot of it. We were chipping away, we tried heating it and that made it worse. There were 5-6 of us working on it while racking are brains on an easier way. I googled it, found your tip. After that it just took 2 girls to finish up and got it done in the time it took 5 of us that worked on it all day. Wanted to say thanks!! Now we can go home and ice are sore arms from all the chipping we were doing before I found your tip

siliconghost (author) in reply to kmpjayhawksMay 5, 2011. 12:56 PM

That is great! Glad I could help!

billfarr says: Oct 22, 2011. 4:50 PM

May you be Blessed by all and/or any Diety that watch over you.
And may you never become unable to hold onto a single blade of grass to keep from falling off the earth.

siliconghost (author) in reply to billfarrOct 22, 2011. 6:32 PM

Billfarr, now that bit of feedback just made my day. Thank you and glad you like the instructable!

tiggerlick says: Jan 10, 2013. 9:32 PM

Okay, I bought an antique reproduction Victorian couch for a song because repairs had been attempted with hot glue and resulted in a fairly hideous mess. I'm pretty confident and fairly clever, so I went after it with paint thinner. No luck. I tried paint remover. Nope. Windex. Nix. I broke out the big stuff; Methyl Ethyl Ketone-negative. KleanStrip solvent, which will damn near dissolve human bone (I don't know this for a fact). Nah. I would have used a small thermonuclear device if the internet instructions had actually worked properly but someone somewhere has clearly altered them.
Then I found your video. In 15 minutes I'd picked enough hot glue off of the pink velvet to get the result I needed and continue the repair.
Thank you. Not only from me, but from all the inhabitants of my fair city who were saved from atomic incineration by your timely and instructive video.

siliconghost (author) in reply to tiggerlickJan 14, 2013. 9:54 AM

Thank you for the wonderful feedback! Glad I could help.

dennist1 says: Apr 20, 2013. 10:16 AM

Incredible! I would have never thought of trying it - wouldn't think alcohol would touch that stuff. Thank you!

Just to add to the info though; a couple things I discovered. It doesn't seam to actually dissolve the glue but rather somehow weakens the bond. So, if your trying to clean up a smeared mess from attempting to remove it with heat - its still gonna be a lot of work; though it can be done. This works really well if you still have a bit of a clump there - the glue just pops off the surface cleanly.

Thanks again to the poster; and to this website for making such information sharing possible!

Hoogieflip says: May 5, 2012. 4:23 AM

Thanks SO much for this! I only wish I'd read it before I spoiled my new bag by picking the spilt hot glue off it :-). I'm going to buy some of this for the cupboard.

siliconghost (author) in reply to HoogieflipMay 5, 2012. 4:31 AM

No problem at all. Sorry you didn't read in time to save your bag :( Thanks for the feedback!

ldowns says: Dec 3, 2011. 5:28 PM

Amazing! Thank you for this. Just did it on fabric/ribbon and works as well with no impact to fabric.

buteomont says: Mar 16, 2010. 5:56 AM

Have you tried it with something more porous, like paper?

MaryBens in reply to buteomontDec 25, 2010. 12:24 PM

After watching this video, I tried this on paper. I repair books at the library, and many of the books that come to my desk were previously repaired by running hot glue down the spine and placing the pages on the glue. It doesn't hold very well, and when it fails and the book makes its way to me, I was pulling the old glue off with pliers and scrapers so I could re-apply the proper kind of adhesive.

I have put the rubbing alcohol on the inside of the cover spine area to remove the old hot glue, and I have used it on the ends of the pages that were submerged in the hot glue. I try to keep the alcohol from soaking very far into the pages, but it dries quickly and does note make the pages wrinkle, and I have been quite successful in quickly removing the old hot glue from the books.

Thanks so much for this video. It really has made my repair jobs much faster!

siliconghost (author) in reply to MaryBensDec 26, 2010. 9:45 AM

Mary, thanks for the great feedback. Glad this has been helpful for you!

siliconghost (author) in reply to buteomontMar 16, 2010. 8:38 AM

I haven't tried paper, but that wood board was also pretty porous. You would probably damage the paper with the alcohol, but it would be worth a shot if you really needed to do it.

- John

mastermakoko says: Oct 11, 2010. 5:19 AM

i want to remove a speaker from my budokan headphones,to make a jackhammer ones but their stuck with hot melts,can i use this solution?
what is isopropyl?is it just normal alcohol 70 %?

siliconghost (author) in reply to mastermakokoOct 11, 2010. 7:43 AM

Yes, this should work for that. Just be careful not to get the speaker cones wet with the alcohol.

Isopropyl alcohol is also known as "rubbing alcohol". I believe it is more like 88% alcohol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopropyl_alcohol

On a somewhat related note, you may want to check in to these as well:
http://www.metacafe.com/static/perstitial/0/

I made these for mowing my lawn and they work quite well. Allows me to hear the music without having the volume up extremely loud. Not sure if they would be strong enough for jack hammering though. For the cheap price, it's almost worth a try.

You can buy the Earmuffs from Amazon.com here: http://astore.amazon.com/johspro-20/detail/B001BL04PS

The Ideanator says: Sep 6, 2010. 6:21 PM

Interesting idea, I will have to try this.

One problem i have with your demo is that you're using a lot of metal, metal takes the energy out of the glue faster than it can adhere usually, at least thats how it seems when I do it. If you did a test without metal, that would be nice.

The biggest thing I want to know is does the alcohol dissolve the glue or just help it come off?

siliconghost (author) in reply to The IdeanatorSep 8, 2010. 7:45 AM

It works just as well on non-metal surfaces. I just used what I had handy at the time.

The alcohol doesn't appear to dissolve the glue, but it does appear to remove it's bonding properties and it drys the hot glue out (making it very brittle).

It's funny you posted this question when you did because I was just talking with a friend about posting the chemical equation that clearly explains WHY this works.

My chemistry is rusty so that may take some time.

The Ideanator in reply to siliconghostSep 8, 2010. 2:18 PM

I tried it on a circuit board encased in a hunk of the glue, it does have some effect, I'm not sure its the adhesive properties or if it is just really slow at dissolving it.

Either way I'm just going to soak that board in some alcohol for a few days to see what happens.

siliconghost (author) in reply to The IdeanatorSep 8, 2010. 3:47 PM

Actually, the first time I discovered this (about 25 years ago) was on small circuit boards. The hot glue was used as a strain relief for several wires attached to the board. Isopropyl alcohol worked great to loosen the hot glue when we had to rework the boards. In that case it was in between about 25 small wires and didn't work quite as gracefully as shown in my video, but it did work quite well with a little patience picking it away. Sometimes it also requires more than one application of alcohol.

Chromatica says: Mar 15, 2010. 5:22 PM

Weird that this works. Would this work on get the excess hot glue on the tip of the glue gun.

siliconghost (author) in reply to ChromaticaMar 15, 2010. 7:09 PM

Yes, it definitely would. I'm sure someone with a background in chemistry could explain how it works. The alcohol appears to quickly "dry out" the hot glue making it stick to itself better while also breaking its bond to the surface. If you try to remove hot glue without alcohol you'll end up with a bunch of small pieces and quite a mess.

I literally stumbled on this while working with hot glue over 20 years ago at a previous job. It ended up being a "major discovery" for how we conducted our "re-work" on defective parts.

After a bit of research on the net I was surprised that even today I can't find anyone else that is aware of this solution. I found that most people are using much more harsh chemicals. That prompted me to create this quick Instructable to share the knowledge.

Chromatica in reply to siliconghostMar 15, 2010. 7:11 PM

Well thank you for sharing.