Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
At least for occasional duty this HomeRight heat gun kit is great!, March 16, 2006
I don't know the reliability track record for this brand (since I appear to be the first reviewer!), and can't yet say how this HomeRight C800552 Heat Pro Deluxe heat gun will hold up in long-term use for heavy-duty "construction" projects since I haven't yet used this item for such, but I've had this unit for about 3 months now with no problems.
Additionally, for occasional projects like heat-shrink tubing (medium heat), drying out the cell phone that got dropped in water (very gentle heat), it has some very nice features I wanted:
* What seems to me to be continuously-variable temperature settings: just rotate the dial to get the heat level for the job, no too-little/too-much as with some "digital step" units;
* the 1200 watts are claimed to take it from 140-1100 degrees F (60-590 C is marked on the dial), and the lowest setting is very gentle (which I found good for drying out delicate electronics);
* two air speeds (plus OFF; equivalent to some claims I saw for "three" air speeds);
* turns out to be reasonably quiet (quieter than a hair dryer and those big heavy-duty industrial heat guns with only one or two settings), and can support itself on a table pointing straight up (to free up your hands);
* a row of 6 nifty LED lights that indicate POWER ON plus 5 more that fade in one-by-one as the heat dial is cranked up to roughly indicate increasingly hotter settings (good for an at-a-glace safety reminder for when the unit is pointing up and the dial is on the bottom);
* accessories were included (no extra hunting/ordering hassles), although the hand tools are fairly light duty: concentrator, deflector, window-protector, and hook nozzles; all-purpose, triangular, combination, and heart-shaped scrapers;
* a carrying case.
The accessory nozzles would probably hold up OK for larger projects (since you're not supposed to put pressure on them), but you might find the rather light-duty hand scrapers suitable only for the occasional smaller project. But better hand scrapers are readily available at the stores -- it's the nozzles that fit your particular unit that are hard to find.
This HomeRight lacks, of course, the qualities of a professional high-end heat gun like the better Steinel models that feature laboratory-grade thermocouple feedback control, LCD temperature readout, automatic cool-down cycle, etc., but when you pay in the neighborhood of two hundred dollars for such a unit you should expect better quality. Actually I was expecting accessories to be included at such prices, but those are additional and also rather pricey.
Looking down the nose of this unit it appears to have a ceramic form on which the heating wire is wrapped, which may (or may not) be better than units which sport two crossed sheets of mica which I've seen in a lot of short-lived hair dryers.
Some of the, uh, let's just say "recreational smokers" that use heat guns for their vaporization/volatilization/hot-gas-extraction "aromatherapy" or "phyto-inhalation hobby" need certain features that this unit might not offer, such as "ceramic block encapsulated" heating elements (so as to not get mica or metals in the air stream) and more-closely-regulated thermostatic temperature control. Such "hobbyists" should probably look elsewhere to the Bosch/Makita/Steinel/Sears-Craftsman-by-Steinel class models.
However, since I'm not really an everyday professional painter/plumber/woodworker/etc. (or even an avid do-it-yourself hobbyist for that matter), I finally convinced myself that although I could imagine doing all sorts of heat-gun projects around the house, calming down and scaling back in price to something potentially less durable would be OK for me.
That then left the issue of finding a unit with useful accessories easily available. Many of the modestly-priced units in the local retail hardware and construction stores (Lowes, Home Depot) were not-so-bad (say, the Wagoner Digital Heat Gun), but lacked a set of accompanying nozzles stocked at the store, thus driving up the overall cost.
Then I found this HomeRight unit at a local Sears store in the paint department, kinda far away from their other models in the tool department, only to find out later that I could have purchased it for even less, delivered to my door, here at Amazon!
Bottom line? If you are a pro or semi-pro user, you could take a chance and buy up to 4 or 5 of these units for the price of some of the others, and thus have backups on hand (until you decide to get a professional model), or perhaps let other folks help speed up your project until one breaks and then you'd still have at least one working one with some warning time to get a replacement.
So, for an occasional-use person like me I think it's great since it's reasonably powerful, handles nicely, is reasonably quiet, is nicely equipped, has that simple-to-adjust continuously variable heat setting, is holding up so far (I haven't accidently dropped it yet), and at this price you can try it and still have money left over to buy another brand if it doesn't meet your needs. I don't see how you can lose!
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heck of a deal for the price!, July 21, 2008
I purchased this heat gun for the sole purpose of installing Dynamat soundproofing in my eight year old Honda CR-V. Since I only planned to use it for one project I didn't want to spend a whole lot. This gun was incredible for what I intended it for, but now I have used it for so much more that I can't believe I lived without one for so long.
For starters, this is incredible for heat shrink tubing. It is designed to stand on its back in a very stable position so that you can have both of your hands free to hold your project. While soundproofing my car I also added an amp to my stereo. I cut heat shrink tubing to cover all of the wire splices and safely and easliy heated them with this unit. (MUCH easier than the old Bic Lighter technique, especially in your engine compartment.)
Since then I've found tons of other uses;
My daughter broke the wick on a $[...] scented candle after we'd only used it about an hour. I grabbed this gun and melted about a 1/2 inch of wax to pour off so we could save the other $[...] worth of "Fresh Linen" smell.
My brother used it to easilly take stickers off of his work van.
I heated the end of some aquarium tubing to make it pliable enough to slide over a tight fitting.
My brother used it to heat some PVC piping so he could bend it to an angle.
My wife used it to melt some craft thing (that I still don't understand).
In general, it's a heck of a package. Lots of accessory blades and tools, nice case to keep it in, great gun with lots of control over the settings. Go get one and melt stuff!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hot Air Tool Kit HomeRight C800552 Heat Pro Deluxe, April 20, 2008
Good quality with attachments for just about anything you need to do. I haven't used it for large project where heat gun would be worked for hours a day, but numerous small projects where gun was used for several minutes at a time, have been accomplished without a hick-up. Good value product, worth the money spent. As usual, AMazon service was great!
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