Did you know that you can buy your glue sticks on a roll? Sure you can find glue sticks in 6″, 10″, and even 15″ lengths, but what if you need even more than that? That’s where Surebonder’s glue rolls come in.
No longer do you have to stop and waste time loading glue sticks. These clear glue rolls work in low, high, and dual temperature glue guns and are made in the USA.
The glue rolls come in four options:
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- RM-5 mini-size 5 ft. roll ~$4-5
- RR-5 full-size 5 ft. roll ~$8-9
- RM-188 mini-size 188 ft. roll ~$37
- RR-77 full-size 77 ft. roll ~$36-38
I’ve found two reliable retailers online selling the glue rolls: Amazon and Walmart. Their prices don’t exactly match the list price. For example at Amazon the 5 ft standard roll is way more expensive at almost $9. Walmart is more reasonable at $4 (plus shipping). Both retailers sell the 77 foot standard roll for around $36.
Buy Now via Amazon
Buy Now: 5ft roll via Walmart
Buy Now: 77ft roll via Walmart
Discussion
This seems like an obscure product to post, but I’m of two minds about it’s usefulness and thought I’d ask our readers for their opinion.
When I first saw it, I thought: “hey, that’s a pretty good idea!” After thinking about it for a while I thought: “that would have very limited practical use.”
My opinion was turning away from: “this is a good idea,” until I thought, “wait a minute, you don’t have to drag around the whole roll, you can cut it to any length you want.”
I’ve used several types of glue sticks: the minis, which seem to run out way to fast, the short standard size sticks which also see to run out too fast, and the longer 15″ sticks that seem to be about right. Still there are times where it would be nice not to run out in the middle of using the glue gun, so I could see where cutting off a 2 or 3 foot piece would be very handy.
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What uses can you think of for a long length glue roll?
fm2176
I agree that this could prove handy. I have a box of 15″ sticks which do seem about perfect for many projects. I picked up some shorter sticks on clearance which are good for small projects, and I haven’t even seen my mini glue gun for a while. I use my Ryobi cordless almost exclusively, so it would be interesting to test the performance by testing various batteries and lengths of glue stick.
fred
I wonder how well these would work (if they come in 5/8 in. dia.) with the 3M guns that we used for templating countertops. There, the guys were flowing a lot of hotmelt to stick template pieces together and ran through lots of glue (these guns could flow over 40ml per minute).
In the shop – the “hot ticket” now (pun intended) is using a hot melt bulk spray gun or bulk-tank extrusion gun that typically hold something like 200ml in their on-board tank. But that is only about 90 seconds of glue flow at continuous full flow (about 130ml/min.)
Robin
Are they the orange FRP ones? Those things are solid. I could aee that being handy too
Dennis
Seems like this would be a lot more useful if there was a reel on the glue gun that you could load the roll into. That way it would be more self contained and portable. Although it would make the gun itself a lot heavier and more unwieldy.
fred
Even with the bulk pneumatic glue guns the manufacturers still seem to limit the on-board tank size. Probably because of a compromise with weight and heat-up time versus run time. There are probably industrial hot-melt adhesive dispensing systems that can load and heat adhesive in bulk – but I don’t recall seeing this sort of equipment for field use.
Wayne R.
I was thinking some sort of shoulder strap/bag for the box. Packpack? Or maybe an overhead thing like an IV drip stand, tie your extension cord to it to drag it around.
I’m glad I can avoid this stuff…
Koko The Talking Ape
I could imagine a very simple spindle to just keep that long tail from flopping around. It could be made of wire, and very light. Maybe it could fold out from the gun.
Mr Weedley
wrap it around your torso like a m60 ammo belt
Scott
They are so close to having built the MIG welder of hot glue. Just saying.
Evadman
No thanks, this means you have to bring the work to the tool instead of the other way around. This seems extremely unwieldly. It would probably be great for a production run at a hot glue station.
Frank D
In a very stationary application, where the product moves through and you need to cover only a small work area sq ft wise … sure. Beyond that, the hot melt I have used is pretty stiff and now one has 75 of plastic coil to carry around? Unless the box comes with a belt clip, or you can hang the box from the ceiling, … don’t know. Seems a bit cumbersome.
demure
Yay, this seems like it would be marketed to assembly line work that called for hot glue in volume to me.
MM
This would probably be useful for people who do a lot of crafts or small jewelry — applications where you are basically using the glue gun all the time.
Actually, is there a particular brand of glue gun that’s recommended? I use one for securing templates during woodwork and for the jointing sled for my planer, so pretty infrequently, but I recently snapped my el-cheapo and need a new one.
Tim E.
I have the cheap surebonders from hobby lobby (with 40% off coupon) and the value just can’t be beat. If you break it, it’s like $8 for a new one. If you want something a little nicer and arguably more robust, I particularly like my DeWalt ceramic dual temp gun, model DWHT75098. They have a not-dual-temp version as well. I like that the cord comes out the back of the bottom of the handle, so it can sit very flat and very stable on a table, unlike some of the cheap ones. Heats up quickly and has kept up with anything I’ve thrown at it.
My absolute favorite but useless to you and your situation glue gun is the bosch gluey, and it makes an argument same as these rolls. I buy the mini sticks and cut them down to the size the gluey takes, and it’s cheap, and great when I only need to fix a fallen command hook or similar, when you wouldn’t normally haul out your regular glue gun because it’s too much effort, but hot glue would be a good solution to whatever problem. So I can see doing the same with the roll if you use glue in that quantity, you cut off pieces of whatever length you want for the time and it’s good.
MT_Noob
Per the post
“….I could see where cutting off a 2 or 3 foot piece would be very handy”.
Is exactly what I was thinking. There are times where it would be very useful to just cut off a section and not worry about running out at the worst possible moment. Thanks for the heads up Stuart, it is good to know that the option exists.
Blocky
Sometimes when I need a long boy, I just glue two sticks together end to end.
ToolGuyDan
Nobody needs a multi-ton coil of rebar. By the time you’ve rented a machine to manipulate it, it’s sometimes more expensive than ordering the lengths and shapes you need.
You buy a coil and a machine to cut and bend it onsite so you can be sure you’re handing the untrained folks the exact right piece, exactly when they need it. If I hand every assembler 5 inches of glue per part, I’ll find out real quick who’s been using 6 inches or 4 this whole time and causing my QC issues.
DRT
After recently finishing a large job with some stupid little sticks, I absolutely think this is a great idea. If my wife hadn’t already bought a bunch of the stupid short ones, I would be first in line to buy a reel.
The What?
I’ve always wondered what the advantages were of a hot glue gun vs jb weld or various other types of epoxies and adhesives such as e6000 or gorilla glue or loctite or wood glue or construction adhesives. I’ve never had much luck with the hot glue gun. They don’t seem to have much bonding strength at all compared to the other products that I mentioned. I don’t even know what materials it bonds together. I’ve tried it on plastic and metal to no avail. What does it work on besides wood or paper?
demure
My background with hot glue is mostly DIY/hobbyist, so there could be nuance I’m missing.
In my experience, hotglue can be used as a nice temporary glue to hold alignment that just needs to last long enough to get a better/permanent joining done with another method.
I’ve also seen it used in DIY electronics projects to tack wires in place in a way that can also be removed without damaging wires.
Brian M
There are different types of hot glue, some are MUCH stronger than the hot glue our Mom’s used on Christmas Wreaths.
Bob
Agree on glue types. I got a chance to use some 3m stuff once. Like most everything 3m it is expensive but works better. Can’t remember if you need a special high heat gun for it as well. Ill defer to more experienced guys.
For my needs the cheap stuff works good enough until I can tack weld the steel together. Then I toss the template.
Brian M
I’m not an expert either but I have done research…Surebonder has several types of glues on their site, what most of us will want is industrial adhesives. Mostly you need high temp guns for it. I have a buddy that swears by the (Black) wood adhesive for filling in cracks and holes in hardwood, he claims it’s as good as epoxy with none of the drawbacks. Some other brands sell dollys that you press against the repair to force it deeper in the crack…I can never remember what brand that is but I follow a couple users that use it on IG.
Here’s Surebonder’s industrial adhesive formulas: https://surebonder.com/collections/formulas
Blocky
I use it on gator foam board to build up boxes for housing architectural models. The seam it forms is often stronger than the adjacent areas.
I also use it for building up cardboard structures that are more than 6×8’, for when I have to make cases for oversized paintings. – tape makes for a flimsy box and often loses its holding strength after only 6 months to 2 years in climate controlled storage.
Koko The Talking Ape
As others say, hot glue can be very strong or very weak, but the chief advantage is that it hardens very quickly. So its good for temporary assembly, as demure says. It also doesn’t soak into cardboard or paper.
That said, I hate them. I’m always burning myself on the tip. And filaments of glue get everywhere. At least they aren’t sticky.
fred
We probably made hundreds of countertop templates – mostly out of luan or door skin plywood strips. You need a lot more than just a few dabs of hot melt. But I don’t recall guys getting back to the shop and saying that the templates slipped or fell apart.
DRT
Carpet edging. Hot melt works perfectly, and every other adhesive you mentioned won’t work.
Bob
This is cool. I don’t often use hot glue but when i do i use alot. Usualy large cardboard or particle board templates for steel fabrication.
I like your idea: Cut it down to the size you need and let er rip.
I typicaly remove the partialy melted glue stick from the gun when im done. Just do to space in my tool box. So as long as im reasonably stationary I can just feed directly out of the box.
I melt the end of the new stick to the old one when im reloading. Seems to help with feeding problems.
Jim Felt
I’ve never tried or at least remember using your melting to the new stick end to adhere to the old one.
I’ve just jammed the new one in at the point where the gun feed grabber would hold the new one and kept squeezing in use.
I guess the glue chamber was/is hot enough to melt the new stick on contact?
Jim Felt
I’ve used the 5/8” x 15” yellow Scotch sticks in maybe five brands of glue guns up to both German made and commercial Scotch guns for decades laminating 1,000s of linear feet of model railroad spline and (to quote Opus the penguin) “I’m good”.
But if you needed this material in or on an assembly line setting “maybe”?
Fun find though. Thanks Benjamin for posting.
Reflector
You can just glue sticks end to end. Cheapo sticks used for packaging tend to be a bit iffy as the strength of the bond isn’t too good and they tend to be hard more than flexible but if you need the metaphorical “3 ft of stick hanging out” then it is doable. You can prep double or even triple (unwieldly past this) long sticks, especially of the foot long ones, this way. Works great if you’re dealing with cardboard packaging with long glue seams and you don’t want to pause for too long when you know you’re going to burn through a stick fast.
Charles
There are certain situations where even the big 15″ glue sticks are frustratingly quick to disappear -but most of the time for home / shop situations it’s not that big of a deal.
I have, though, come across situations where knowing about these continuous glue sticks would have been a godsend / saved huge amounts of time (n therefore piles of $$$).
I’d assume that in normal high production situations you’d cut off 6ft or so of glue stick and be able really lay down some glue for a good while.
But a backpack and a high-powered cordless glue gun (and a mountain of batteries) would the stuff of dreams.
Matthew J
I like it, when making Halloween costumes (2019 was a Cardboard Titanic) for my children, I use an almost endless supply of little glue sticks a roll like this would have been very handy to have.
JoeM
I’m just not going to lie at all here… had I known this was available 20 years ago, I would have bought this, and nothing else, for the rest of my life.
I have gone through projects with family members, where the biggest roll would have lasted an hour, hot glue has been so ubiquitous in our home to that degree. If I have a project I’m working on, and the glue gun is out, having this roll on the floor, leading up to the gun, would be the greatest thing I could do to improve my mood, and efficiency in completing the project.
If I had to make it portable, I think I would get a relatively inexpensive tool box to keep the rolls, and the guns, in the same place, then create direct outlet ports in the box to allow it to act as power bar, and glue source all at once. That I haven’t already bought one of these is a miracle, limited only by delivery time, and payment speed.
JoeM
Not available in Canada… Tease…
Though, Surebonder does make cordless Glue Guns that run on DeWALT 20 Volt Max batteries. An interesting concept to say the least.
Stephen Surls
Is that a new thing or maybe a Canadian thing because here in America I’m pretty sure they run on Ryobi batteries? I would definitely be interested in buying one if it ran on DeWalt batteries.
Stephen Surls
Double checking in their website I see they do offer a Makita and Milwaukee version so maybe a DeWalt version is out there somewhere thanks for the info!
Bertil
My god, I need this, a project I’m working on is chewing through the sticks and though it’s a little thing it would be nice to not have to worry about loading in a fresh stick. Not suitable for everybody, but definitely an advantage for myself
Rob
The nayesayers are not thinking about the fact that you just cut off the amount you’ll need and not carry the whole roll around with you. I don’t use the commercial super duper hot melt bonding tools; just the ubiquitous standard hobby Steinel. Not sure how many times I’ve forgotton to follow up with another stick and then spent an hour cleaning out the one that got stuck inside.
Travis
You guys might be interested in this fantastic detailed test and comparison of hot glue brands. He tests tensile and sheer strength on various materials and ranks them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu8sJBctzFc
Surebonder was pretty middle-of-the-road. Overall top performers were Elmers, Ad-Tech, Gorilla (in that order.)