A week or two ago I fitted a shower screen. The wall edge of it fits
into an aluminium channel. The instructions say to run some silicone up
the inner face of the channel, but the idea is that this stays inside
the channel acting as an adhesive, rather than emerging from the gap and
making a seal. There's a rubber doofer to do that.

It turns out that my alignment was better than I had thought, so the
hefty amount of silicone I applied to fill the gaps actually had very
little gap to fill, and squidged out of the edges. I cleaned most of it
up while still wet, but I'm left with a thin film of silicone on both
the glass and the aluminium channel. This is very visible through the
glass, and I want to get rid of it.

I thought it would be simple enough with a tube of silicone eater, and
I'm sure this will work fine on the glass. But I've (luckily?) just read
the instructions and found a note: "do not use on aluminium". How else
can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel off) of silicone
from polished aluminium?

Cheers,

Pete

On Oct 6, 7:09 pm, Pete Verdon
d wrote:
A week or two ago I fitted a shower screen. The wall edge of it fits
into an aluminium channel. The instructions say to run some silicone up
the inner face of the channel, but the idea is that this stays inside
the channel acting as an adhesive, rather than emerging from the gap and
making a seal. There's a rubber doofer to do that.

It turns out that my alignment was better than I had thought, so the
hefty amount of silicone I applied to fill the gaps actually had very
little gap to fill, and squidged out of the edges. I cleaned most of it
up while still wet, but I'm left with a thin film of silicone on both
the glass and the aluminium channel. This is very visible through the
glass, and I want to get rid of it.

I thought it would be simple enough with a tube of silicone eater, and
I'm sure this will work fine on the glass. But I've (luckily?) just read
the instructions and found a note: "do not use on aluminium". How else
can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel off) of silicone
from polished aluminium?

Cheers,

Pete

razor blade? then will the remainder "rub" off perhaps?
JimK

Pete Verdon wrote:
A week or two ago I fitted a shower screen. The wall edge of it fits
into an aluminium channel. The instructions say to run some silicone up
the inner face of the channel, but the idea is that this stays inside
the channel acting as an adhesive, rather than emerging from the gap and
making a seal. There's a rubber doofer to do that.

It turns out that my alignment was better than I had thought, so the
hefty amount of silicone I applied to fill the gaps actually had very
little gap to fill, and squidged out of the edges. I cleaned most of it
up while still wet, but I'm left with a thin film of silicone on both
the glass and the aluminium channel. This is very visible through the
glass, and I want to get rid of it.

I thought it would be simple enough with a tube of silicone eater, and
I'm sure this will work fine on the glass. But I've (luckily?) just read
the instructions and found a note: "do not use on aluminium". How else
can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel off) of silicone
from polished aluminium?

Cheers,

Pete
scalpel mate.

slice through the silicone and peel off excess.

In article , Pete Verdon
d writes
A week or two ago I fitted a shower screen. The wall edge of it fits
into an aluminium channel. The instructions say to run some silicone up
the inner face of the channel, but the idea is that this stays inside
the channel acting as an adhesive, rather than emerging from the gap and
making a seal. There's a rubber doofer to do that.

It turns out that my alignment was better than I had thought, so the
hefty amount of silicone I applied to fill the gaps actually had very
little gap to fill, and squidged out of the edges. I cleaned most of it
up while still wet, but I'm left with a thin film of silicone on both
the glass and the aluminium channel. This is very visible through the
glass, and I want to get rid of it.

I thought it would be simple enough with a tube of silicone eater, and
I'm sure this will work fine on the glass. But I've (luckily?) just read
the instructions and found a note: "do not use on aluminium". How else
can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel off) of silicone
from polished aluminium?

On the glass I would use a stanley knife blade based scraper with a new
blade, they really can get gown to the surface. If it's more than a
smear I would make a cut perpendicular to the glass at the frame edge to
get a clean line.

On the Aluminium I would wait, time is a great healer and in a month's
time you may feel that the thin smear of silicone is not quite as
noticeable as you first thought ;-). Realistically, the eater solution
is barred, abrasive solutions could damage the finish on the Alu and in
time a thin layer may lift and you can assist it by rolling it off with
your fingers.

Hindsight being 20:20, the solution is to mask before using silicone,
just in case.
--
fred
BBC3, ITV2/3/4, channels going to the DOGs

Pete Verdon wrote:
A week or two ago I fitted a shower screen. The wall edge of it fits
into an aluminium channel. The instructions say to run some silicone up
the inner face of the channel, but the idea is that this stays inside
the channel acting as an adhesive, rather than emerging from the gap and
making a seal. There's a rubber doofer to do that.

It turns out that my alignment was better than I had thought, so the
hefty amount of silicone I applied to fill the gaps actually had very
little gap to fill, and squidged out of the edges. I cleaned most of it
up while still wet, but I'm left with a thin film of silicone on both
the glass and the aluminium channel. This is very visible through the
glass, and I want to get rid of it.

I thought it would be simple enough with a tube of silicone eater, and
I'm sure this will work fine on the glass. But I've (luckily?) just read
the instructions and found a note: "do not use on aluminium". How else
can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel off) of silicone
from polished aluminium?

I have posted this method a couple of time before, but I have not had
any feedback from it.

Find some springy flat steel that is about 15 thou thick and no more
than an inch wide (brain is too addled to convert to metric right now.
OK, I have had too much whisky) and wrap the end that you will hold in
lots of tape to take away the sharp edge from your hand. On the other
end, using a smooth file, shape it to have small rounded corners, about
the diam of a pencil lead. File the cutting edge end, including the
corners, so that it is shaped like a chisel with the bevel upwards.
After you have done this, you have to remove the burr that has been
formed underneath, by filing back to the handle with the file flat to
the underside of the scraper. This is *vital* to the operation of this
scraper. Failure to observe this will result in scratches to anything
that is softer than the scraper. Use your finger nail to detect anything
that might make a scratch by drawing it over all of the cutting edge,
from handle to end.

The idea is that you bend it flat, cutting end level with the working
surface and curved up into you hand close to the area that you want to
clean up and it shouldn't leave any trace that you have used it. You
*have* to ensure that the cutting edge is too flat to the surface to dig
in. Ensuring that there are no burrs means that they won't scratch the
surface either.

Try an obscure area first. Usual disclaimers apply.

Dave

fred wrote:
In article , Pete Verdon
d writes
A week or two ago I fitted a shower screen. The wall edge of it fits
into an aluminium channel. The instructions say to run some silicone up
the inner face of the channel, but the idea is that this stays inside
the channel acting as an adhesive, rather than emerging from the gap and
making a seal. There's a rubber doofer to do that.

It turns out that my alignment was better than I had thought, so the
hefty amount of silicone I applied to fill the gaps actually had very
little gap to fill, and squidged out of the edges. I cleaned most of it
up while still wet, but I'm left with a thin film of silicone on both
the glass and the aluminium channel. This is very visible through the
glass, and I want to get rid of it.

I thought it would be simple enough with a tube of silicone eater, and
I'm sure this will work fine on the glass. But I've (luckily?) just read
the instructions and found a note: "do not use on aluminium". How else
can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel off) of silicone
from polished aluminium?

On the glass I would use a stanley knife blade based scraper with a new
blade, they really can get gown to the surface. If it's more than a
smear I would make a cut perpendicular to the glass at the frame edge to
get a clean line.

On the Aluminium I would wait, time is a great healer and in a month's
time you may feel that the thin smear of silicone is not quite as
noticeable as you first thought ;-). Realistically, the eater solution
is barred, abrasive solutions could damage the finish on the Alu and in
time a thin layer may lift and you can assist it by rolling it off with
your fingers.

Hindsight being 20:20, the solution is to mask before using silicone,
just in case.
I have found NOT trying to get it thin, and scalpelling off thick pieces
that wont break when torn off, to be the best plan.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
fred wrote:
In article , Pete Verdon
d writes
A week or two ago I fitted a shower screen. The wall edge of it fits
into an aluminium channel. The instructions say to run some
silicone up the inner face of the channel, but the idea is that
this stays inside the channel acting as an adhesive, rather than
emerging from the gap and making a seal. There's a rubber doofer to
do that. It turns out that my alignment was better than I had thought,
so the
hefty amount of silicone I applied to fill the gaps actually had
very little gap to fill, and squidged out of the edges. I cleaned
most of it up while still wet, but I'm left with a thin film of
silicone on both the glass and the aluminium channel. This is very
visible through the glass, and I want to get rid of it.

I thought it would be simple enough with a tube of silicone eater,
and I'm sure this will work fine on the glass. But I've (luckily?)
just read the instructions and found a note: "do not use on
aluminium". How else can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin
to peel off) of silicone from polished aluminium?

On the glass I would use a stanley knife blade based scraper with a
new blade, they really can get gown to the surface. If it's more
than a smear I would make a cut perpendicular to the glass at the
frame edge to get a clean line.

On the Aluminium I would wait, time is a great healer and in a
month's time you may feel that the thin smear of silicone is not
quite as noticeable as you first thought ;-). Realistically, the
eater solution is barred, abrasive solutions could damage the finish
on the Alu and in time a thin layer may lift and you can assist it
by rolling it off with your fingers.

Hindsight being 20:20, the solution is to mask before using silicone,
just in case.
I have found NOT trying to get it thin, and scalpelling off thick
pieces that wont break when torn off, to be the best plan.

That's a good juxta-positioning of posts. I tend to vacillate between the
approach you take and the one Fred does. Still sitting on the fence!

Dave wrote:
Pete Verdon wrote:
How else can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel off) of
silicone from polished aluminium?

Find some springy flat steel that is about 15 thou thick and no more
[snip building of Special Tool]

Thanks, but it sounds an awful lot like the flexible knife blade I've
already been using. This takes off damn nearly all of it, but a tiny
amount still remains and on glass in sunlight it's quite visible (as a
dirty smear) and on polished aluminium it's also apparent.

Thanks for the suggestions; I'll probably use the silicone eater on the
glass, which is the most obvious part. I'll maybe try a washing up pad
on the alli, together with lots of time.

Pete

Pete Verdon wrote:
Dave wrote:
Pete Verdon wrote:
How else can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel
off) of silicone from polished aluminium?

Find some springy flat steel that is about 15 thou thick and no more
[snip building of Special Tool]

Thanks, but it sounds an awful lot like the flexible knife blade I've
already been using. This takes off damn nearly all of it, but a tiny
amount still remains and on glass in sunlight it's quite visible (as a
dirty smear) and on polished aluminium it's also apparent.

Thanks for the suggestions; I'll probably use the silicone eater on
the glass, which is the most obvious part. I'll maybe try a washing
up pad on the alli, together with lots of time.

What are thumbnails for?

"Clot" wrote in message
...
Pete Verdon wrote:
Dave wrote:
Pete Verdon wrote:
How else can I cleanly remove a thin film (far too thin to peel
off) of silicone from polished aluminium?

Find some springy flat steel that is about 15 thou thick and no more
[snip building of Special Tool]

Thanks, but it sounds an awful lot like the flexible knife blade I've
already been using. This takes off damn nearly all of it, but a tiny
amount still remains and on glass in sunlight it's quite visible (as a
dirty smear) and on polished aluminium it's also apparent.

when it;s just a smeer, i find i can rub it off with my fingers,
it's gotta be totally dry, but then just rub the silicone fairly hard, and
it tends to flake up and come off,