Silicone Removal?

[hriehl1]

Silicone is evil all right. It took 6 hours to remove 4 portlights and scrape the silicone off the boat. Holding a small flexible putty knife perpendicular to the surface, holding the blade with both hands very close to the boat surface and push-pulling a scraping motion made reasonably short work of that... not too bad.

But... now I have 4 portlight frames where the silicone that bedded the plexiglass has to be dug out of the frame channel, and the flange between frame and boat has much residue too.

I dug out one of the four frames using a sharpened screwdriver. I only stabbed myself twice before I wised up and put on heavy leather gloves, but the 2.5 hours I worked on that one frame got 95% of the silicone, but far short of 100%.

The hand-tool method is unsatisfactory. Next comes Heat. The glass is out of the aluminum frames, so I'm thinking Heat Gun, Bernz-o-matic torch, even acetylene as long as the aluminum isn't melted.

If heat doesn't work, wire wheel is next (though wire-brush by hand was useless). Then in desperation I'll try one of the commercial solvents (though consensus is that they don't work very well.)

I'd appreciate the benefit of anyone's similar experience. Thanks

[carterskemp]

my method for removing silicone from my large window frames on my triton was kind of a hack job using stuff i had at the time, but it worked pretty well. a super heavy duty stiff green scrubby, a wire wheel, and Petit bottom prep.
the wire wheel did the bulk of the dirty work, with the green scrubby filling in where the wire wheel couldn't reach, and the bottom prep solution softening the silicone somewhat. softening is all that can be expected of any chemical's action on silicone, but the main benefit was that it has a red tint. when the silicone softened up a bit it would also turn a slight shade of pink making it immediately obvious where the silicone was and wasn't. please wear a respirator and gloves when using this stuff though as it is super toxic.

good luck.

[Rachel]

I just "removed" (if you can ever really use that word with silicone) some silicone from a gelcoated surface, and I found that 3M adhesive remover helped. After scraping it as much as possible with a Lil' Chizler, I would spray it with the 3M product and a subsequent scraping would come up with a bit more silicone.

This was the type in a black aerosol can, marked "citrus based."

Of course you can be more aggressive on metal, so any help the remover might give could be underkill.

Rachel

[mitiempo]

A wire wheel on a Dremel should work.

[Maine Sail]

A wire wheel on a Dremel should work.

Try the Dremel Scotch Brite wheels if they will fit in the frame..

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Attachments ... sive+Buffs

[Skipper Dan]

Do not use wire wheels on aluminum. You can get fiber wheels that work as well. Never use a wire brush or anything steel on aluminum. Small parts will get caught in the aluminum as start a corrosion.

Dan

[hriehl1]

Those Dremel pads look promising... I've ordered a Dremel Tool (which I also need for other uses) and will report on my success.

Thanks

[hriehl1]

An update and request for next-step ideas.

Many winter night hours later I have the aluminum channels "dug out". Adhesive remover had little affect, SS (by hand) wire brushing had no affect and the Dremel SS wire brush couldn't really get into the channel. But by hand I have these channels as clean as shown in the (top portion) of the original picture, which I hope will suffice.

Now to re-build. New plexiglass has been cut.

The bottom portion of that original picture shows the channel before clean-out with just the glass removed;
1. the glass took approx half the channel width,
2. the glass was near-flush (some silicone) against one (exterior) channel wall,
3. the remainer of the channel had what I believe was an L-shaped (bottom of channel and interior sidewall) foam-like weatherstrip-like product which was also bedded to the channel with silicone.

The photo in this post shows a cross-section of the frame, each port has two frame halves that butt together around the glass at 3 and 9 o'clock. , and the frame-flange will be bedded and thru-bolted to cabinsides.

So... what to re-bed the glass into the frame channels with? Anyody know of sources for weatherstripping-like products that will give a good seal? Could a thin layer of silicone on the exterior wall and butyl tape packed on the bottom and interior wall of the channel work? I have tons I bought from MaineSail. I know first-hand that silicone is evil but the next owner will be stuck and by then, the aluminum frames will be toast anyway).

I will definately re-bed the assembled frame to the cabinside with butyl tape.

Thoughts? Thanks.