I've got tool questions, two of them actually.

One, my hot glue gun drools. Whenever it's on and at operational temp a constant stream of hot glue comes out of it, slow but certainly there. Is this normal or should I replace this gun? It makes it hard to use. So far my success with this tool could be described at best as 'almost avoided disaster.'

Second, I'm currently borrowing one of these (A Friskars 12" Paper cutter) Anyone have comments on it as far as this hobby goes? I think it could be useful for the larger, obviously straight, items.

Thanks for your time people.

SR.

I dont know about your glue gun, I dont have that much experience with one--tho I've never had one do that to me. Is the part of the gun that pushes the glue stick down stuck

As far as the paper cutter, I'm afraid you'll only have a use for it on large straight cuts--and there are some cases where you will. However, I've had excellent luck with a razor bladed knife and metal ruler. I guess before I can give a better answer, I'd need to know what sets you are going to use the cutter on

I have a similar paper cutter, and like it for the ground tiles.

My mothers hot glue gun was fine for the first month then started drooling, it was drooling the one time I ever used it to glue transparencies, havn't looked back since, found better more secure ways of gluing transparencies, personally I think the glue gums up the mechanism that prevents the glue from steadily flowing allowing for it to drool, maybe look around at some hobby sites for tips on how often this happens and if it is fixable.

Heh, I don't have that paper cutter, but I do have the one with the large sword like blade on one side, there is a pic of mine under my tools in my pics. I've only found it useful for trimming excess white and it will cut thru as many as twenty sheets of cardstock at a time. With mine though it is hard to keep the paper from moving as the blade closes, but yours looks to be designed differently. I would only recommend using it as Spoo does, unless your willing to risk a few test pieces of smaller parts and such to see how workable it is. It should work fine for long straight cuts, such as you'd find on ground, or basing tiles, as well as some of the larger props and your average building walls. I like that it has a scoring blade option though, that little feature did catch my eye, let us know what you think of it if you try it out.

My hot glue gun drools a little. Usually I stick a piece of scrap cardboard under it just in case. One thing you can do is get in the habit of pulling the glue stick back out a bit so there's not so much of it in contact with the heating element. Other than that, it's just something you srot of have to expect.

OK, cool, thanks for the Glue Gun comments and I'll be trying the cutter on some base tiles here and see how it works out. I can't imagine it would be better for small bits than a knife but those large squares would be so much easier if it works like I'm hoping.

SR.

OK, an evening of messing about with the Rotary cutter and I like it. It's not too hard to line up a cut, easily on par with doing the cut by hand with a knife, and the edges are straight and sharp. Over all it does a very good job but in all honeatly I wouldn't say it's so much better than a knife and straight edge for the price.

SR.