What's the best way to shrink heat shrink tubing without spending a bunch of money on some special tool?

Will a lighter work?

I used a butane torch with a heat fan attachment when I did my car stereo install.

What's smaller, easier, and cheaper?

Hairdryer ...

Or a hot air gun ... usually the heat shrink for PC stuff isn't too hard to shrink. A lighter may singe the tubing.

Quote: Originally Posted by percman24601 I would use the hair dryer or heat gun if you can get one. The problem with the lighter is that you are burning a fluid with a large amount of hydrocarbons. This will leave residue on your sleeves and can be a real pain to get off.

That's why I like to use black heatshrink...

Soot stained heatshrink = cigarette lighter love

...avoid it, if you can.

If you're using black heatshrink like me and Rob, a lighter oughta work just fine. If you're going the colorful route, a hairdryer or heat gun is what you'd want, so as not to scorch the 'shrink...

hot air guns arent that expensive i dont think

Heat guns aren't very expensive, but before I got mine I used a regular BIC lighter to shrink my red tubing. Just gotta be careful, and not let the flame too close to the tubing. It can be done well with a lighter, just take your time.

heat gun is the proper way but i hate waiting for it to warm up when it takes a few seconds with a lighter. my favorite way was with a mini butane torch but it broke so now i need a new one. i'm not sure who told me but someone here told me that if you keep it in the blue part of the flame it won't get soot on the shrink

Heat guns are pretty cheap, I think you can get them at auto parts stores for less than $20. I could go into a long story about how as a screen printer a heat gun saved my ass on an order when my flash curing unit broke at 11pm... but no one would know what the hell I'm talking about.

If you're going to do a lot of modding I'd imagine a heat gun could be handy (beginner at this, so that's conjecture). But they can be useful for other things in modding too, tricks with paintjob effects and such.
-NOW DON'T BE DARWIN AWARDS CANDIDATE AND TRY A 3000 DEGREE HEAT GUN ON A FLAMMABLE BASED PAINT.- lol. Just there are certain tricks and siutations where they are indispensable.

Other than that go with the torch, it's easier to direct the heat in waves with one. Get a $5 mini torch lighter and have the best of both worlds.

I just use my zippo. Set it to small flame hold under. Dont let flame touch it. I have yet to get a singed black burn type of thinh. But when im doing stuff that aint gona be visable, i burn the **** outa it.

I use a lighter. As long as you aren't a jackass about it and hold the flame under it for only a moderate amount of time, you won't burn anything, and the heatshrink will shrink, as advertised.

You could go find yourself a heat gun at any local hardware store for as little as $29.00. Or you can check ebay, I see tons of them on there all the time.

I went out and bought all the right tools when I sleeved my PSU and having those right tools saved a few headaches.

My black sleeving, heat shrink, and black vantec molex connectors are on their way here. I think I'm going to use a stick lighter, like one you use to light a grill, set on a very low flame.

How much of a pain would it be to bypass the mobo/psu adapter, it's like a 20 pin to 24 or something like that, reason I want to change it is because the adapter supplied by vantec doesn't have the sleeving that the original connector has. If I change it every power wire will be sleeved.

Napalm.............







Definataly dont use that.

heat guns are good if you do a lot of heat shrinking but otherwize just use a lighter (being careful)

Quote: Originally Posted by carbongraphite heat gun is the proper way but i hate waiting for it to warm up when it takes a few seconds with a lighter. my favorite way was with a mini butane torch but it broke so now i need a new one. i'm not sure who told me but someone here told me that if you keep it in the blue part of the flame it won't get soot on the shrink

Heat guns don't take time to heat up, they're not soldering irons...I used to use the lighter method, and it worked like crap. The tubing wouldn't shrink evenly, and would sometimes shrivel up or curl up, and you'd also sometimes melt the wiring itself, that you were trying to seal.

I spent about 30 bucks on a heat gun, and I must say I LOVE it. You plug it in, aim at the heatshrink tubing, pull the trigger, and in 2 seconds it's shrunk, all nice and smooth and even. Also, the heat gun comes in handy as a very good label remover (it heats up the adhesive and allows you to peel off the label in one, easy motion). It also melts plastic, if you want to bend or mold a piece to make it fit a difficult application. All this means you get a lot of tool for your mere 30 bucks.

Well you guys are all close, but I have found that the best thing for shrinking heat-shrink nice and tight is this.

Man alive! Are you heatshrinking entire small villages?

My ex used to be into stamping (no, not her foot, though she did occasionally do that too) and I remembered a tool that was used for embossing inks and powders to raise them for fancy lettering and such. I found one recently and bought it for both shrink tubing and heating acrylic to bend. The Nancy-boy factor of using a stamping tool is alleviated by the fact that it's made by a quality (and macho) tool manufacturer, Milwaukee.

Much more precise than the regular hardware store heatgun I have, and puts out a respectable amount of heat.

Heat GUN

JUST how tough is heat shrink if it takes a 750 - 1000 temperature range to shrink it. I feel like I can melt lead with this sucker. I think its the 1 - 2 second exposure.