SOme people use a hair blow dyer until they graduate to the heat gun. Some prefer the blow dyer. Personally mine never got hot enough. I bought my heat gun, in the painting section at Ace Hardware. It has 2 settings 1000 degrees and something like 750 degrees. I love love love it! It is a very wise investment. You will find a million and one uses for it. Leveling, cleaning molds, cleaning tools, smoothing tops of container candles, etc. etc.... A definate must have as far as tools are concerned. Mine was $20 and they were like $19 at wal-mart without the second setting. I shopped around a bit first.