Thread: hot glue & electricity

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I was wondering if it's safe to cover the ends of some wire with hot glue to prevent me from shocking myself on a prop.

Here's the wires in question:


This socket/bulb combo will be living inside an old cathedral radio, but I want to make sure that I don't zap myself if it happens to be on while I'm making adjustments.

Will it prevent the light from working? Will it catch fire or melt?

Thanks!!

Glue stick is not really an isolator like electrical tape,.......& being glue, if the end got hot from drawing too much current, the glue can remelt. They have liquid electrical tape.
If you just need to secure it while you work on it, then wrap some electrical tape on the ends & cover the contacts. Be safe, not a human s-more.

I may just be paranoid, because there's hardly any excess bare wire exposed, but I know that others have insulated their exposed electrical with a drop or two of hot glue to act as a way to secure a connection and to protect themselves from potential electrocution.

Once it's in the radio, it'll stay there permanently, so I shouldn't have to come into contact with it unless the bulb burns out.

So how often do you do electrical work with the plug still in the wall?

Originally Posted by Dminor

I was wondering if it's safe to cover the ends of some wire with hot glue to prevent me from shocking myself on a prop.

Here's the wires in question:


This socket/bulb combo will be living inside an old cathedral radio, but I want to make sure that I don't zap myself if it happens to be on while I'm making adjustments.

Will it prevent the light from working? Will it catch fire or melt?

Thanks!!

I would cover it in hot glue and then electric tape or even duct tape. Either one should work but it never hurts to double you're protection. There shouldn't be any where close to enough heat to melt the glue and If it gets hot enough to melt the glue then you'll have a bigger problem to worry about. Also don't worry the hot glue wont stop the light from working.

Originally Posted by !!UR-dedd

So how often do you do electrical work with the plug still in the wall?

Never. This was more for those times where if I needed to move something around inside the body of the prop, I didn't want to be able to accidentally zap myself.

Originally Posted by madmax

I would cover it in hot glue and then electric tape or even duct tape. Either one should work but it never hurts to double you're protection. There shouldn't be any where close to enough heat to melt the glue and If it gets hot enough to melt the glue then you'll have a bigger problem to worry about. Also don't worry the hot glue wont stop the light from working.

O.k. great! Thanks for telling me that. Now I feel better about it.

...now where did I leave my glue gun?

For anyone interested, this is the prop in question.

YouTube- My haunted cathedral radio

thats really cool Dminor

Awesome stuff

phil

Originally Posted by phil121

thats really cool Dminor

Awesome stuff

phil

Thanks Phil!