Silicone; Dont use it and why.

[dean]

  Try Tide powdered laundry detergent and turpentine mixed to remove silicone oils,I read it somewhere that Dow Chemical suggests it. I have never had to try it yet.

[OptiMystic]

  Try Tide powdered laundry detergent and turpentine mixed to remove silicone oils,I read it somewhere that Dow Chemical suggests it. I have never had to try it yet.

I am kinda late to this party, but I wanted to comment on this. I have another hobby - historic woodworking. I use terps a lot. It will thin oils pretty readily, but it is important to realize that thinning is not necessarily removing. The detergent in the mix is probably an attempt to get the oil to surface (detergents are surfacents), but I would be surprised if it can break down that mix very effectively. What I am getting at is that if you use terps to remove a small spot of concentrated oil, you up end up with a larger spot of oil in a much lower concentration. If you do it a few times, it hopefully becomes negligible (when X approaches zero and light bends like hot taffy  ). How much is negligible for silicone? I don't know.

BTW, a few mentions of PL products. I have used a few. They make a PU based roofing sealer that has very similar  properties to 4200, but it isn't brite white. This is something of a generalization, but their PU based products that are marketed as adhesives tend to gas off more and what looks like a good sealant will be more like foam under the skin. They are good adhesives, but not sealants. The PL sealants seem to be a bit more solid inside. So pay attention to which it says it is (adhesive or sealant) and realize that you may need more than one product (though the aforementioned roofing sealer is a pretty strong adhesive).

[OptiMystic]

I have been using this lately:





It has those magic words - "Contains no silicone". It comes out of the tube white but dries fairly clear.

[Norm]

silicone remover from 3M! 
Must get some now...
Thanks for the remark about that product.
Norm

[Marc]

I'm getting ready for spring and that means I can get back to work on my boat.  I'm planning on using 3M 5200/4200, but at $10.00 a tube it seems there should be another altrnative.  Seems to me when I first started coming to this site a year ago I read a thread about using PL200 or PL400 as they were comparable to 3M products and about half as cheap.  Does anyone femember this?  Or how about using vulcem caulking?  Marc

[s/v Faith]

Yup,

  Right here. 

(I went ahead and merged your question into the thread with the answer).   

.....its been my experience and observation over the last 37 years that silicone is a complete nightmare in almost all cases.... for an added two dollars, that is required for one tube....

Yup.   

  FWIW,

The price of 3M's sealants have gone up again, and I have been looking around at some alternatives.   

  Here is a great polyurethane sealant that is sold at many home repair stores.

PL Polyurethane Window, Door & Siding Sealant

  It is around $5 a tube.  Works well, and has excellent adhesive (not to strong, not too weak) and will not screw up your boat.

[Marc]

Faith, thank you very much!!!  There will be absolutely no silicone on my boat.  Marc

[psyche]

It depends on what you are trying to seal. Bomar uses GE Ultra Glaze Structural Sealant SSG-4000 to seal Lexan in their hatch frames. This is what they sent with my replacement Lexan for my Bomar hatch. No one carried this in Savannah and I had to special order it. This is what I used in my windows on my Columbia 4 years ago. I have not had a drip, leak or ooze of water intrusion. It only comes in black. Dan

[CaptMac]

Help!

I just removed my ports to install new ones and the openings are full of silicone, please tell me the best way to prep the openings for the new ports.
Should I scrape them with a puddy knife, then us some kind of cleaner (what kind) then sand the opening?

 Thanks

[s/v Faith]

  You will want to use the least destructive method first.  Use a razor, then scotchbrite (abrasive) pads.  Get as much of the silicone off of the surface as you can.

  You can try to flush with whatever your normal prep solvent is... but NOTHING will break up the silicone oil.  There are some substances marketed as 'release agents' that will break the adhesive bond between items bedded in silicone... but none that I know of actually claim to be a solivent for silicone.

  You can 'test' the around the port with plain old spray paint.  If you spray the spraypaint and you see 'fish eye' (little holes where the paint draws back from the surface) then you are going to have problems.

  What are you doing next?  Are you just replacing the ports?  If so, you may consider a silicone/poly mix to bed them.  I would not use them on a surface that had not previously been smeared with the evil silicone.. but it may be a way around the contamination if you are just re-bedding the original ports.

  Good luck!  I hope you don't have any trouble.  If you can avoid re-painting the surface that has been contaminated, and your ports do not rely on adhesive (good clamping force between the frame and the port)  you may not have much of a problem.
 

[Marc]

Well today is the day!!!  Since work is slow I haVE A 3 DAY WEEKEND WITH A SPECTACULAR WEATHHER REPORT!!!  I want to prime the inside of my boat and then move topsides sanding etc. then prime and paint topsides and start putting everything back together.  Can this be done in 3 days?  I don't know but I'm sure as heck gonna find out.  Still waiting for fuji to send me a new disc so I can download pics.  I'm pretty excited.  As soon as it is light I'm waking up the neighbor hood.  Have a good day.  Marc

[AdriftAtSea]

Good luck and keep us posted...

[fullkeeldan]

Ahoy !
Dont post much as I have way more to learn than share but thought I would pass along info of a dandy product for removing silicon from portlight installations etc.
Manufactured by DAP, it is appropriately called " Silicone-Be-Gone".

I tried a few different products with no success. Applied this, didnt even wait the recommended 2 hours and it peeled right off.

Now I can finally move forward

[s/v Faith]

Dan,

  I am glad that this worked for you.  I looked at the mfg's web site, and this is not a solvent but more of what others have advertised as a 'release agent'.

Specially formulated gel softens unwanted silicone for easy removal prior to applying fresh sealant. Also great for removing excess cured silicone. This fast acting formula removes most silicone residue in 30 minutes to one hour. The low-odor formula won’t harm most surfaces. Indoor and outdoor use.

  Works well for exactly what they say... the problem is it appears to work by attacking the agent that bonds the silicone, rather then diluting the silicone it's self.

  The reason this is important is that while it removes the silicone on the surface, it does not get the oil out of the gellcoat so painting / epoxy work / calking is still prone to failure.

  I hope this is not an issue for you, and that your job goes perfectly.  I only bring this up so everyone knows that silicone is still and evil substance, the use of which should be avoided .

 

[Captain Smollett]

Got to use the 'silicone is evil' line the other day...was met with a blank stare.

Glass Optimists have the side air bags in a formed-in compartment.  We were filling the bags on the training fleet (Youth Sailing starts next week!), and on one boat, when I removed the cover, I found the compartment wet.   Noticing some of the other boats had drain holes but this one did not, I set about to find a drill.

Some other guys were doing some rudder repair work with epoxy, so, one of the program leaders (also a bit of a  wig in the construction hierarchy at Hatteras Yachts) asked them to dab a little on the holes I drilled to seal up the raw edges.

One dude said, "you sure silicone wouldn't be better for that?"

 

I muttered "silicone has no place on a boat," and the wig softly said, "no, use epoxy." 

Oh well.  I've come to adopt the phrase "pushing a wet noodle up a rope with my nose" and have found occasion to use it no less than 5 times now in the past week.

It seems silicone and it's use just won't go away...(I've gotten to curse MANY applications of the vile stuff here on my boat...indeed, 90% or so of the MAJOR structural repairs I've been working on are at least partially due to the use of silicone to non-seal).

[Gary Guss]

Epoxy breast implants .... Ehheeeeeeeww ! 

[Leroy - Gulf 29]

Epoxy breast implants .... Ehheeeeeeeww ! 

Solid man, solid! 

[sailorbum]

Epoxy breast implants .... Ehheeeeeeeww ! 

Solid man, solid! 

AND you have to watch how much mass you're trying to cure.  It can get real hot. 

Todd

[s/v Faith]

....One dude said, "you sure silicone wouldn't be better for that?"....

.....seems silicone and it's use just won't go away...(I've gotten to curse MANY applications of the vile stuff here on my boat...indeed, 90% or so of the MAJOR structural repairs I've been working on are at least partially due to the use of silicone to non-seal).

It's cheap, and it is know by many as a sealant... bathtubs, fish tanks...  and the perils of using it are
often only apparent once one has paid their dues....

.... paying dues is not popular, so silicone continues to be. 

[haidan]

I have been very happy with my silicone sealed portights. 1/2" plexi with a RTV (room tempurature vulcanizing what ever that tells you) black gasket silicone. The main thing with them though is that the silicone acts as a gasket not an adhesive, the windows are screwed in with stainless screws and I let the silicone cure before tightening the windows down. It stays soft even in the sun, most other products like sikaflex or 5200 will harden and eventually the window after some unpreventable twisting will leak, but the silicone is still as soft and rubbery as the day it first cured.