Let's talk about the most expensive cartridge I've used so far. Silicone removal

[six-point socket II]

So I was dealing with some stubborn silicone residue lately and I got really tired of failed attempts to scrape or brush off ultra-thin silicone layers of my floor & trim tiles.

On my nightly research I stumbled over Würth's "Silicone Residue Remover" (0890500). Würth has been a great business partner ever since I started using them and even mid-pandemic they where able to deliver product on time that others couldn't.

The "issue" I had with the product in this case was price. Now I won't give any number, that would be against my contractual obligations, but let's just say my base price was about 5 times the cost of a typical, high-quality, caulk cartridge + VAT. So I e-mailed my agent and asked if she could do something about it, even though I'm just a fairly low profile client. Turns out she could, and the offer came back at now "just" 3 times the cost of a typical, high-quality, caulk cartridge + VAT.

Honestly, I felt playful and wanted to know what it's all about.

What was clear from the beginning, it's not a fluid/ liquid consistency like typical products, but a paste and will remain in place over the whole exposure time.

So here's the most expensive cartridge I've used to date.

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To make use of another famous "The Wire" quote by Peter Gerety starring as "Judge Phelan": "Celebrities always seem much smaller when you meet them in person."  [big grin]

Yours truly applying the good stuff.

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Applied.

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The manual set out a minimum thickness of 5mm to be applied of the product, and an exposure time of 2 - 4 hours tops for the thickness of my residue. I went for the full 4 hours.

After 4 hours it had became a gooey/ gel like consistency and was easily scraped of and disposed in a small container. As you can see there is a lot of really fine strips of silicone residue embedded into the scraped off product.

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You're supposed to wash it off one more time after scraping, so I did.

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All the silicone residue was gone.

Now for the most pressing question, is it worth it?

- I did not find a comparable product. You can buy liquid solvents of all sorts to remove silicone, but most if not all of them require additional mechanical removal of the silicone residue. This product does not require you to do anything more but to simply scoop it up and dispose it after the exposure time is over and then to just wash off the remains with a sponge or cloth.

- I applied the product and was immediately able to continue working on other parts of the project. I did ensure proper ventilation.

- All the silicone residue was removed. It's spotless now and I can re-do the silicone.

- I spend way less time on my knees than I would have otherwise, because of my underlying health conditions this is a big factor for me.

So to finally answer that question, I think it is worth it. It is not cheap, but it's worth the money - at least to me. Now I will add that I don't think using it on the floor/trim like I did is actually really suitable for the product. You need 5mm of product minimum, and more when your silicone residue is thicker. Also exposure time gets longer the thicker your residue is. For what you see in my last picture I almost used the whole cartridge.

What I do think it is absolutely suitable/ perfect for is the use as pictured on the cartridge. When sinks or other (bathroom) vanities that were sealed with silicone need to be removed/replaced and you need a spotless surface afterwards for new installation. It will save you lots of time scraping and rubbing off silicone and silicone residue and leave you with a spotless surface.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[woodbutcherbower]

Only 5x the price of caulk? Pfft …. The Hilti 2-component anchor resin I use for fixing up stuff like this?

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£43 + 20% VAT for a 300ml cartridge with integrated component mixing nozzle. Expensive? Sure. But I haven’t had a canopy fall off a wall in 30 years.

Kevin

 

[six-point socket II]

That is a beautiful canopy and a beautiful entry as whole with door, fittings, glass and all. Well worth a lot more than just the Hilti anchor resin!

Thanks for sharing!

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[woodbutcherbower]

Thanks for your kind words [member=61712]six-point socket II[/member] !! The door's one of mine, too - along with the frame. The glass came from the local reclamation yard. The glass actually cost £10 less than the resin .........

 

[Packard]

I have found that silicone caulking will yield to a liberal application of heat + scraping.  I used a heat gun and a steel scraper on ceramic tile.  I’m not sure what I would use if the surface were softer.  The steel putty knife did not damage the tiles.

At the other end, there is silicone lubricant.  It is almost impossible to remove all of it to the extent needed for painting. 

In the 1970s I was working for Franklin Oil, a manufacturer of stamping lubricants.  Chrysler had purchased some stamping oil from a competitor that was contaminated with silicone oil.  This caused the paint to flake off of the roof, hood, and rear deck of Dodge and Plymouth Neons. 

Chrysler had to pay to repaint the cars.  They gave specific instructions for the body shops on cleaning the surface.  But even when they followed the instructions exactly as written, the new paint would peel off in a few months. 

Apparently, when you wipe down a surface coated with silicone, cleaning efforts with solvent only amount to redistributing the silicone.  A very small amount of it is removed with each cleaning.

(If you have a neighbor you really hate and he has a dent in his car, when you walk your dog past his car spray the dent with silicone lube.  If the body shop does not sand down to the bare steel, not only will the paint flake off, the body putty is likely to fall to the ground too.)

Note:  I am not really suggesting that you vandalize your neighbor’s car.  I’m just illustrating what silicone lubricant can do.

 

[woodbutcherbower]

If you have a neighbor you really hate and he has a dent in his car, when you walk your dog past his car, spray the dent with silicone lube.  If the body shop does not sand down to the bare steel, not only will the paint flake off, the body putty is likely to fall to the ground too.

Note:  I am not really suggesting that you vandalize your neighbor’s car.  I’m just illustrating what silicone lubricant can do.

Post of the year right there. Thanks [member=74278]Packard[/member]  [big grin] [big grin] [big grin]

....... Goes out to walk his dog past his neighbour's house .........

 

[dwillis]

Thanks for the information, I hadn't heard about this type of product before. It reminds me of a project I worked on when I was a forensic architect (basically figuring out why things go wrong in buildings).

My client was an insurance company who was providing coverage for a general contractor who had installed a diabase stone flooring (diabase is a dark black-green igneous rock) in a high-end mountain cabin. This was not your typical stone floor tiles, but stone cut several inches thick (read old school stone flooring). When the contractor was applying the waterproof finish, a silicone oil based product, the installer accidentally left a can of the oil directly on the floor, and it left a faint ring on the stone floor. No surprise the homeowner wasn't happy and wanted it fixed. Unfortunately the flooring was custom made for this installation and the stones cut from the same rock mass so the color was consistent. Because of the expense, and custom sizes, there were no duplicate pieces available, and having new stones cut would result in a color mismatch.

At the time the only option was to find a way to remove the offending ring and not remove or replace the stone. After some research, and discussions with Dow Chemicals, who supplied the silicone oil to the floor finish manufacturer (who shall be unnamed), the Dow representative shared a story about their silicone oil. Apparently there was a lab accident in a Dow laboratory that involved a spill of silicone oil on a vinyl tile floor that was glued to the concrete slab. After the oil seeped through the tile joints the floor tiles debonded and popped off. After attempting to glue the tiles back down they came to the conclusion that the silicone oil had soaked into the concrete and no amount of cleaning was going to remove the silicone oil residue, in fact they said that there was no known solvents at the time that would remove silicone oil. End result was the concrete had to be ground off to below the point the silicone oil had penetrated before new concrete could be poured and new vinyl flooring installed.

That's a long story to get to the point, but I had to tell the contractor that there was no known fix to remove the stain (this was twenty years ago) and I could only suggest that a) try and find matching tiles (unlikely), b) grind the surface of the floor (difficult because the whole area would have to be ground down), swap the offending tile with one in a less conspicuous place (remember custom sizes, difficult to remove, and homeowner wasn't going to accept the flaw in any location), or c) offer a cash settlement (wealthy and demanding homeowner, good luck).

I wish I could tell you what finally happened, but one of the downsides of this type of consulting work is as a consultant, I was rarely, if ever, told about the settlement for legal reasons. It was like every time I read a murder mystery novel the last five pages were missing. [sad]

 

[Ron B]

I am retired from a manufacturer of Class 8 trucks. (blame me for all the semi-trucks on the roads).  Any type of silicone was banned from our factory floor because of paint adhesion problems.  If someone got silicone on their gloves, then touched a cab or hood-well you understand. Then five minutes later they are pulling the next hood up-so they could damage a lot of trucks before the silicone wore off that glove.

We painted with Dupont Imron, a two-part very expensive paint.  Some of the special colors we used for show trucks was well over $1000 a gallon.  As you can imagine, this would add up quick.

 

[six-point socket II]

Great and very interesting insight, everyone! Thank you!

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[sancho57]

Great to see you back Oliver, I had to check the date of the post 3 or 4 times to make sure this isnt one of your old ones...
Glad yer back buddy you've been missed