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do not use silicone

V

VETE76

Well Known Member
a gentleman was showing some building tips on an rv. he showed where to use silicone before painting! DON"T!! paint will not stick! anywhere close to where u put the silicone!
here's my answer to him:
have you tried to paint this area yet? nothing will stick where silicone has been applied. paint will not also stick within inches of this silicone. i own a manufacturing plant and we siliconed a lot of units then sent to paint booth. horrors!!!! we had to strip all the silicone and every place the **** vapors touched or settled on. good luck

fred

silicone is for after your all done. and never want to paint again.
 
Silicone is "unremovable" from surfaces to be painted!

We do a lot of work in the Automotive industry. Every enquiry/specification/order/contract we get, says that if you bring anything that has silicone in it, into thier factory, you will be sued! If anything silicone gets on the bare skin of the car, they will never be able to paint it again and they will have to scrap the body. The silicone causes blisters that can not be removed or painted over, it will just come back, again and again.

Can you emagine what disaster it would be if silicone gets inside the paint lines that run from the paint mix room to the paint booths, when they are installed? That is why, when we work in the paint shop, we sometimes have to submit samples of products we use (even from the hand soap, that we use after work), so they can test it for silicones!

Silicone should be kept miles away from anything that needs to be painted!

I don not even keep closed cartridges in my shop!

Regards, Tonny.
 
Silicone and my Rudder Trailing Edge

When I stopped working on my rudder a while back (too long!) I wasn't happy with the trailing edge (RV-7). It had a wave about a third of the way from the bottom. I was looking at my trailing edge the other night and made the big decision. Yes I drilled all the rivets out, ordered a new trailing edge wedge and plan to re-do the trailing edge. Wish me luck because the rest of the rudder is just beautiful!:rolleyes:

I was really surprised that the pro-seal did not bond the skin and wedge in some places. Some of the "un-bonds" were as much as one inch long. I am convinced that I used rags/cloths that had been in the clothes dryer with the "fabric softener" tissues that my wife sometimes uses. I've read that they contain silicone.

Boy, do I feel like a dummy! My job for many years was to oversee safety and quality assurance requirements on the Shuttle Program solid rocket motors. Silicone is such an issue in the solid rocket motor manufacturing plant that it is FORBIDDEN on plant property, much like what Pilottonny described in the previous post.

Of course, if my theory is correct, I have silicone contamination on the inner surfaces of the skins which would still cause bonding problems.

I'll have to do my homework on how to attempt removing the silicone. Any suggestions, anyone? [Update: I just read Tony's title saying silicone is "unremoveable" from surfaces. If my theory is correct, I may have to build a new rudder. I'll have to find some way to make a straighter trailing edge. Oh, what fun!]

Silicone has a purpose...lubricating moving parts. But it is bad stuff around things that need to be bonded...like paint and adhesives.

Don
 
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Timely advice - thank you. My wife "borrowed" a couple of my shop rags the other day and helpfully washed them for me when she was done - and she likes to use those dryer sheets with traces of silicone on them. I will present her with a permanent gift of those shop rags, they are now banished from my shop. I've been in the habit for a long time of using paper towels when doing final cleaning for priming, I guess I'll have to use them for ALL metal cleaning now, or use new unwashed shop rags.
 
Remember my idea is only one theory of what may have caused my problem. One thing is for sure...the pro-seal didn't bond properly in several places. What bothers me about my theory is that this situation is not widespread (which is good :) ) ...there are many rudders being built with straight edges. So I do have doubts about my theory.

As someone says on the morning radio show..."Press on, People!"

Don

P.S. Don't confuse "silicone" with "silicon." One is an element; the other is a compound. The words are often misspelled.
 
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rv7boy said:
Remember my idea is only one theory of what may have caused my problem.
Click to expand...

True - but the cost of avoiding this possible problem for me is the cost of a handfull of shop rags - and maybe a case of paper towels over the building life of the airplane as a substitute. Cheap enough.
 
Pirkka said:
Just in case I would be sure not to use silicon based lubricants either.... :eek:
Click to expand...

I think you mean "silicone" based lubricants.

Like I said, don't confuse "silicon" with "silicone." "Silicon" is the element from which many useful products are made. Some of them are called silicones; others are not. Not all silicon based compounds are called silicones. Notice the Wikipedia links in the previous posts in this thread.

Just add an "e" and you get one of those products; "silicone" is the generic name for a family of compounds that are made from silicon.

Please remember how to spell the slippery one...it has the "eeeeeeeeeeeeee" on the end! "Eeeeeeeeeeee" is probably the sound we would make if we were to slip and fall, much like the story about the banana peel. It's also one of the sounds we make when we try to rebuild the rudder trailing edge which is how I got involved in this thread.

P.S. An example of one of our "friendly" silicon compounds is Silicon Carbide...the gritty stuff on sandpaper. It's not slippery.
 
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Not always the end of the world

In my ignorance I ran a bead of silicone sealant along the edge of the rear window, skin interface, in my RV-6. I did it so water wouldn't leak in there.

I farmed out the painting but the painter did not complain and although paint has come off in some areas in 10 years, that area looks like new.
 
airguy said:
Timely advice - thank you. My wife "borrowed" a couple of my shop rags the other day and helpfully washed them for me when she was done - and she likes to use those dryer sheets with traces of silicone on them.
Click to expand...

Over use of those silicone dryer sheets can ruin a dryer also, or worse. They cause the link to build up (makes the link gummy) to dangerous levels and also can cause a fire. :eek:
 
Evan more hazards from silicone caulking.

Any silicone caulking that claims to be mold and mildew resistant also contains mercury to kill the mold and mildew. Unfortunately the mercury reacts very corrosively with the aluminum and steel on an airplane.:eek:

I'm not sure but I think the stuff made for fish tanks is mercury free because they don't want the mercury hurting the fish. But, please check me on that.
 
Does this apply to RTV?

Does this also apply to the use of RTV?

I realized yesterday that I had forgotten to put RTV at the trailing edges of the stiffeners in my L/H elevator. My plan was to go home tonight and drill out the last rivet on each bottom stiffener, squirt in some RTV and then put a MK-319-BS rivet back in.

Will this cause paint not to stick around those rivets!!!?
 
do NOT use anywhere near or on or in the airplane, or on anything you may ever want to paint! don't use it!
paint will never stick to any siliconed areas, nor will it stick NEAR same areas! fumes u can't see, float and land on surfaces, paint won't stick.
where did it say in the planes to apply silicone to the stiffners? what model and how old is your manual?
 
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