Tip of the day, SAFE hotend nozzle cleaning tool…
BAMBOO COOKING SKEWER!
Used for cooking, perfect for cleaning a hotend with a heat gun!
Cut a small section to use as a brush, leave the tip intact to use as a point scraper. Clean hotend parts after disassembly with paper towels and heat gun to remove major gunk. I washed all my parts and wet sanded exterior just a little bit to remove rough machining marks, found the mill used was not level with the mill end dipping to one side slightly. I wet sand with 400 then 2000 sandpaper on a thick acrylic block, glass would be better but it did not need full CPU lapping just better than a rough cut endmill surface.
Hold part so you won’t get burned (in a vice, or with an oven mit, however you want), heat up the part you are cleaning with heat gun, go to town on them with the bamboo brush and point cleaner tip of skewer. You cannot scratch the metal noticeably with bamboo and they will remove all the old filament with some heat and scraping around.
Hotend in pics has 4-5 1kg spools through it, was a bit gunky but not horrible. Inside was a gunky mess though with filament hardened in the corners. I wish I had taken before pics but it was my first cleaning and I didn’t realize bamboo brushes would work so well. If you try the bamboo brush you will see, the thing works awesome!
Preparing the brush use wire cutters or sharp shears to trim the frayed ends after breaking a suitable section by hand. Make a little angle to them so one side can be scrapped around inside the hotend.
Cut away the tips of the bristles as they get gunked up and wiggle the fraying end around to get more bristles. Cut another angle to your liking and go at the gunk again.
You can use the heat gun and the bamboo brush at the same time, just don’t let it start to burn, it’s pretty heat resistant being used for cooking over fires.
You can push the bamboo brush right down at the nozzle tip inside and scrape out ALL the filament and gunk. It won’t hurt the brass or steel. Mount the brush in a drill or dremel and spin some fresh bristle ends when nearly all the gunk is out to get the last bits and polish the inside as much as bamboo can, which is not much unless tumbled in chips for hours. I used a bit of 2000 grit sandpaper to finish the cleaning, polishing the internals with the fine sandpaper wrapped around the bamboo skewer and spun in the nozzle a few times, not much just to polish not to expand the chamber.
