Is Hot Melt easy to do yourself?

[mktrout]

I want to put about 4 grams of hot melt in my driver head.  There is no one to do it locally, closest ive found is an hours and a half away.  Seems pretty easy to do yourself from looking at the youtube videos if you buy the kit for $100 or so.  Any reason not to do it myself?

[third-times-a-charm]

It takes a learning curve and I would experiment with an old head to start with. Getting it in the right spot blindly is tricky.

[MountainKing]

If you know what you're doing it's pretty easy.  If you've never done it before, I would buy the equipment and buy some old heads to practice on.   If it's a one time thing, there's a lot of places that will let you ship the head to them and they can do the work: https://thepeoplesclubs.com/hotmelt . If it were easy, this would be a $10 or less service. 

[Awainer1]

Ya it’s easy. 4 grams isn’t enough to change COG enough to matter. Give it a shot!!

[jah7838]

Very easy. Just go slow while you’re doing it. Messing around with an old club first is a good idea. I have the kit from hotmelt.com

 

 

[MFBach]

It really depends on the club head, IMO. Most modern drivers have removable shaft adapters and some have multiple weight ports, giving you multiple points of entry and making precise placement much easier. 
 

If you’ve done any reasonable amount of club building, it won’t be one of the more difficult tasks you’ve undertaken. It’s not so difficult that it’s worth sending away to be done.
 

Start with a test head, if possible. And go slow. It’s easy to get it into a head, not so much to get it out. 

[Nessism]

As someone with the cheap $100 setup, I'll say that it's perfectly doable, but a pain in the a**.  First off, the gun with that kit is a flimsy POS.  2nd, when heating, the glue will want to run out of the nozzle, so you need to plug it before heating.  I don't even use the heating device anymore; I put the cartridge in the gun, then torch it until the melt is ready to flow.  Good luck.

[balladm]

I have a buddy that got into it. He's hot melted a few clubs for me but my current driver gets a rattle when it gets around freezing. I've shaken big chunks out and remelted it. This final rewarming seems to have fixed it but it's been a pain in the butt. Only added about 3.5 grams  

[shellbmb]

A lot of heads have aftermarket weights that can be ordered through various places.  Swapping weights is much easier if that is an option.  

 

I have the "advanced" weighting kit from hotmelt.com and have used it some.  It took some trial/error to determine exactly how much I was dispensing, but overall, it is not hard.  I found that torching the end of the needle before dispensing make it flow a lot easier.  Oh, and it sticks to everything!!  

[stevechooster]

3 hours ago, Nessism said:

As someone with the cheap $100 setup, I'll say that it's perfectly doable, but a pain in the a**.  First off, the gun with that kit is a flimsy POS.  2nd, when heating, the glue will want to run out of the nozzle, so you need to plug it before heating.  I don't even use the heating device anymore; I put the cartridge in the gun, then torch it until the melt is ready to flow.  Good luck.

 

This right here. 

 

I bought a kit for about the same price. The nozzle was like a two inch long copper tube (very narrow). As I used the gun, the pressure pushing the hot melt pushed the tube off the gun and became a nightmare. Think of a syringe, but the needle part broken off lol. Plus, hot melt isn't as fluid as some may assume it to be. It is super dense substance. I'd imagine the pro guns used at shops or tour vans (which are damn expensive ones) can get that hot melt super hot and runny. 

 

Although it was a one time use for me, had I known what pain it was going to be, I would've found a reasonably priced place to do it or just used my good ol' lead tape. 

[Ri_Redneck]

First, use after market weights if that's an option AT ALL!

 

Second, buy this gun, not the cheapo. As many have said, it's a POS. Go with the heavy duty metal stand. Otherwise, you'll need to cut a groove in the little tray at the end of the standard plastic stand because the tip sticks WAY past that. Metal stand wasn't available when I bought mine.

 

Third, get a cheap gram scale (cooking scale) at Target, cut a piece of paper to cover the plate, zero it with the paper in place and see how much squeezing of the trigger gives you the weight you want. About three tries is all it takes and you're a pro at hotmelting.

 

Important! Cut half of the tip off before using the cartridge. It's too dang long and tends to cool too quickly and plug up! If you have to drill a hole in the clubhead, use a 9/64" drill bit (and USE A CENTER PUNCH for a starting point). Have some acetone or mineral spirits to clean up cause it will string out everywhere. I usually wipe the end of the tip against the edge of the hole when removing it which helps considerably. Apply SLOW PRESSURE to the trigger. squeeze too hard and it will keep coming out till the pressure is relieved.

 

Good luck!

 

BT