Thread: got a trick for stopping silicon tubes drying up?

..got this one from an old shipwright..
.
.about 100mm of clear flexible plastic tube (about 10mm id)...plugged with a bit of dowel at one end...filled with water or detergent and pushed onto nozzle...lasts for yonks..

...or if I'm going to use it regularly, I pump a bit out and form a marble sized dollop at the end...only lasts about a month though

One way or another, if the stuff is going to polymerize, I might as well do something neat/cool with it.

Since the Mountain Pine Beetles have killed off 90+% of the pine here (as much as 70% of the forests, the wood surface under the bark is elegantly filigreed with bug tunnels.
Thousands of square miles of it.
Scrub gently with soapy water to clean the frass (= bug ka-ka) out of the tracks.
Butter with 5+mm thick silicone and lay some plastic window screen on that.
Wait until it sets up (overnight?). Peel off your own homemade 'rubber' stamps.

Doesn't work for embossed pie crusts = not deep enough and the pattern bakes out.

brilliant. ta.

no bar fridge. so went the hose plug water idea. ta.

Originally Posted by underfoot

..got this one from an old shipwright..
.
.about 100mm of clear flexible plastic tube (about 10mm id)...plugged with a bit of dowel at one end...filled with water or detergent and pushed onto nozzle...lasts for yonks..

I like that idea! I'll have take your word for it that it works, at least until after my hols and I'm back to The Grind.

Still, I'll remember it!

Hi Apricottripper,

I haven't got a tip for preventing the silicon brew in the tubes curing if put in storage for more than a couple of weeks but I sure have a means of preventing it curing any further in the gun. Gently remove the tube from the gun whilst approaching the workshop door, look around carefully to ensure no strangers are in the line of fire and toss it into the skip using a high trajectory. Works infallibly. Sorry I can't be of more help I gave up on this one a decade ago and developed the radical approach described.

Cheers Old Pete

ta Pete.

I'll see how long this tube/water/plug idea works for. probably end up going back to the skip toss too. Really need a bar fridge though. Summers really starting to hit us here.

Originally Posted by wun4us

Gotta be honest, I just insert a particle board screw thats a bit bigger than the hole in the nozzle and give it a couple of turns. Been doing that for years, and only had to chuck anything really old. 'Course a new nozzle is necessry everytime the tube is re-used. When buying new tubes, ask for a couple of nozzles for each tube..only been knocked back once and went to another checkout and got them anyway.

That's what I've been doing. If your screw isn't overly large, the damage isn't great.

Recently, I've found a copolymer that looks like silicone, but isn't. Does the same sort of job, the lot I found is clear and its recommended uses including blocking up gutters.

I've not yet found how quickly it dries.

I *like* the way the whole tube has gone off, just when you go to use it

I cut the tube open, just in case there was a smidgen of uncured, still useable silicon inside. Nope.

My 9yo daughter played with the rubbery cylinder of cured silicon for a couple of weeks, and then I used it to throw at the fence whenever the stupid little yap-yaps next door started their incessant yip-yip-yipping.

It had a nice heft to it - very satisfying to throw - generated a large enough noise to shut up the useless furballs, and didn't damage the fence.

Cheers,
Andrew

When the whole tube set up. Your meant to put it in the lathe and turn superballs out of it. Or carve yourself some new gold balls.

I use electrical tape wrapped from about 1/3 from the tip all the way past the tip the fold it back over on itself and wrap it back around the nozzle, I use silicone at least a couple times a week though. The screw in the nozzle never works for me as the caulking gun hangs in the van and it pushes itself back out

the best I have found is to stick the tip in the corner of a plastic baggie then wrap with electrics tape to get a tight seal. Have not had one dry out since

Took Mr Brush'a advice and bought some Twist-N-Seal Stoppers from Carba Tec.

Two weeks after first use and my large silicon tube still extrudes perfectly. Thanks, Mr Brush!