Westcott 16761 Premium Hot Glue Gun Pen with 5-Ft Cord...

It is easier on my hands a fingers better then a regular hot glue guns, but this is cool but good price, love the pen style and size. But found to heat it up for 10 minutes and when glue starts to not ease out of the nozzle top it is time to close it to heat up, it is a slower process must have patience for sure, I like it, check out YouTube videos for more help on how to use this and for tips, tricks. Videos are ver helpful. Some nice positive reviews are best to read and see. Over all love this.

I just finished a small project with this glue pen. Overall, I am happy with the purchase. It was worth what I paid. The one thing I would say is that you need to get used to how the glue is deployed. There is a spring-action plunger that you pull back, and it grabs onto the glue stick. When you hit the trigger, it releases the spring for a few millimeters, and the glue comes out the tip pretty fast. Bottom line: You need to plan ahead where you want the glue to go....and move the tip quickly as the glue flows out. Otherwise, you end up with a blob of glue that needs to be pushed around to get it where it's needed. A minor issue, but it would be nice to have more fine control over the amount of glue deployed.

I really really wanted this product to be as awesome as it looked and so I've waited until I had used this quite a few times to write this review. I love the design and how the glue gun (pen?) fits in my hand. I also like that the amount of force needed to press a button is much less than a traditional glue gun. That said, the effort to pull up the prongs to get the glue stick under pressure to use said button is not easy and more often than not pulls up the second glue stick causing you to need to press the glue stick down whole pulling up on the "prongs" or handle. My more unpleasant discovery is that the part you hold onto gets rather hot even through the silicone grip if you are crafting for a prolonged period. My third observation is that glue leaks from the tip constantly even when the pressure is off the glue sticks. Not sure if it's because it gets so hot or if it's a design deficiency but I ended up with a paper plate covered in glue when I was cleaning up my workspace. My conclusion is that this product is not worth the hassle or stress it caused.

Nothing about this thing is good. The least problematic issue is that it has no rest, stand or legs of any sort. Unless you have your own separate rest to put it on your only option is to just lay it directly on your work surface. The trigger/feed design is ridiculous. It's not like a standard glue gun where you simply pull the trigger and the glue stops when you release the trigger. Instead, there's a spring loaded mechanism at the back that you have to set, it puts tension on the part that holds the glue stick in place, which involves hooks that dig into the stick to push it forward, and then you press the button. When you press the button the little hooks are released to push the glue stick forward and the glue starts drizzling out the tip. There is no control over the flow and no way to stop it until the spring at the back has run out of tension. Finally, if you're wondering how/why on earth I know so much about the inner workings of this thing, it's because I got a good look when it started splitting open. The glue stick some how got jammed. The gun was hot and should have been working, but I started getting weird hot glue air bubbles coming out instead of glue. I kept messing with it trying to figure out what was going on. Remember the spring mechanism and hooks I mentioned earlier? Those little hooks prevent you from being able to pull the glue stick back out the end and the spring just kept smooshing the glue stick in farther. This caused the glue stick to start bunching up inside the pen, though I couldn't see this happening inside the pen until it was too late and the thing split open. I never figured out what caused the jam and eventually just threw the whole mess away. And incase your wondering, I ordered the Westcott glue sticks to go with it so I would be sure to have the correct kind that should certainly work with the glue pen. This all happened the 3rd time I used it.

Like: Shape of gun facilitates use in close quarters, includes features that most other guns offer so no biggy there. Dislike: Protective sheath on discharge nozzle which all other brands have (with one exception) that prevents the use of the gun to redistribute or smooth out the hot glue already applied. The inability to shape and form the deposited hot glue precludes its use in well over half the projects I have completed over the years. The usual projects are often just decorations of some sort. Many of my projects include various materials (Cardboard, wood of various shapes & sizes, plastic sheets, metal sheet & foil, salvaged toy parts & motors, and even some heat sensitive styrofoam materials. Projects include a color slide to digital format apparatus, several lap desks with various accoutrements, a coil winder, a four story plastic gerbil cage with changeable floors of various arrangements, specialized small parts cabinets (specialized both in drawer shape &dividers and the outer configuration to fit into and around computer or other equipment), aquarium equipment, and potting small specialized electronic circuits to contacts that connect to a 9v battery, and many other prototype experiments. The heat shield on a glue gun also prevents the use of the gun to form a fillet in a joint corner or to spread the adhesive to be later reheated with a hot air gun. (This last is used to minimize the thermal mass while maintaining the temperature when gluing to styrofoam ) While a soldering pencil can be modified to do these jobs, having the glue gun heated and already in hand is very convenient. If you ever decide to have a hot nozzle of the proper shape, let me know and I'll buy one. D.H.Orts