Good quality silicone?

[T i m]

Hi All,

I'm currently playing with a year old washing machine I was given with failed bearings (it's now a project / challenge) ;-)

I've stripped it down (carefully cut the sealed plastic tub along it's welded / glued seam) removed the bearings and have new bearings and seal ready to go back in.

I have drilled the 17 x 'lugs' that were originally designed to bolt the two tub halves together and where they had good access both sides I've drilled right through and will use 70 x 5mm ss bolts and nyloc nuts. For the few that were blind I've drilled (pilot / clearance etc) and will use 50 x 5mm hex headed self tapping screws (similar to the original design).

I thought I was going to use a PU adhesive (Tigerseal in this case) to bond / seal the two halves but a test gluing suggests the tub is made of Teflon and it's possible that nothing will really stick. (I've currently got some 'UniBond super all purpose interior and exterior sealant" curing to see if that's any more adhesive). There is no real water pressure on the seal but the joint has to be mechanically sound to take the stresses during fast spin etc.

So to plan B. There is a large groove around one of the joint faces and I was thinking of slightly overfilling that with a suitable 'sealant' (silicone?) and bringing the two halves together, but keeping them spaced apart by a mm or two. When nearly (or fully?) cured I would then remove the spacers and bolt the two halves together fully, trapping the new 'gasket' in the grove and against the mating face? If it's simply a 'seal' would the silicone I already be suitable? If I was looking for something more adhesive, do I need the other type (like they use for fish tanks) and do you think it would have a better chance of 'sticking'?

All the best ..

T i m

[Harry Bloomfield]

T i m formulated the question :

I don't have any leads to it, but I once used some sealant designed to be used on hot flues. Extremely sticky, colourless and heatproof. I'm certain that would do the job.

[The Medway Handyman]

T i m wrote: > Hi All, >

Highjacked from a previous thread;

has videos of CT1 showing it sealing joints in running water !

-- Dave - The Medway Handyman

[T i m]

Hi Harry and thanks for that.

I don't think the temperatures will be an issue in this instance as most (or our) washes are done at 40 DegC or so anyway but 'heatproof' (especially flue temperatures) can't hurt either.

I'm also going to see if I can cut a small groove in the flat face that will be facing the deep grooved face (where a seal would be fitted pre the tubs being welded) just to give a any compound a bit more support etc.

All the best ..

T i m

[T i m]

Oh wow, that does look good eh Dave?

Have you used it yourself?

Seeing that reminded me of my other favourite the full fat Gripfill but I'm not sure it's a good at that (plus I don't think it's waterproof and cures pretty solid).

Any of the sheds stock it do you know ... I want to play!

All the best ..

T i m

[The Medway Handyman]

Not yet - I emailed them asking where I can buy some, not replied yet.

[Pete C]

Hi,

If silicone won't stick or is too messy, have a look at:

Might also be worth taping over the join with aluminium tape as a 'belt and braces' thing.

cheers, Pete.

[T i m]

Oh wow, handy site Pete .. I was thinking about some form of physical seal (I'm also aware I've removed a little bit of material when cutting the tub in half and a seal of some sort might offset that) so that is very interesting.

Yeah, I thought of that as well (worst case etc) .. the only problem is the join isn't consistent all the way round (flanges, motor mounts etc). Still could be handy if the leak is localized etc.

All the best and thanks again Pete ..

T i m

[Dave]

snip

Teflon is a coating, do you mean the metal has a Teflon coat on it? If so, you will not be able to bond anything to it long term.

If the metal has another coating on it, then try and find the local store (it will be usually a one ot two man store, usually quite small) that specializes and sells industrial sealants, to the trade and take a sample of the drum metal, or even the drum itself, with you. You can buy primers for difficult to bond surfaces. I wouldn't put any trust in any domestically available bonding adhesive.

Dave

[T i m]

Sorry Dave, just me being light hearted re the likelihood of finding anything keen to stick to this stuff. ;-)

The drum (the bit you see going round in your washing machine) is (in this case) stainless steel and has been trapped in the factory inside two halves of a plastic 'tub' (imagine two buckets rim to rim).

The tub was originally designed to be bolted together and has a 'tongue on one half that locates into a matching 'groove' on the other with some sort of large 'O' ring type seal trapped in the bottom of the groove. It is then bolted up with 17 self tapping hex headed bolts (Zanussi price of £3 each!).

Some nob in the factory in Italy put a note in the suggestion box that they could save 1.5 lira per machine if the two halves were bonded together (solvent or friction welded etc) and that's how I got this machine. A just_over_one_year_old washing machine with £6 worth of failed bearing requiring over £300's worth of parts to be able to repair it (two 'bolt up' tub halves, bearings and seal, steel drum, 17 bolts and two suspension dampers).

When I got it it was all working fine (I even washed some work jeans in it as a test) except it sounded like a road-roller doing 100mph in our utility area when on full spin.

So, I stripped the tub out of the machine and carefully cut it in half along the seam using my Bosche saber saw. I then removed the drum and bearings from the back half and checked everything was ok (bronze seal bush etc). I ordered a new main seal and sealed (rather than shielded) bearings and got a small tub of very sticky waterproof white grease to back-up the main seal.

I then tidied up the mating faces the best I could but as I had to cut the tongue off the tongue_and_groove type interface when I cut it in half, I had to align the two halves again the best I could then clamp them together with a batch of tiny Mole grips. I then drilled through the (previously unused) joining lugs then opened them up to

5mm dia for some 5mm ss bolts and those that were 'blind' drilled them to take some hex headed self tapping screws.

All I need now is to find a way of sealing the joint. I might be able to use some thin neoprene rubber strip (which will help replace the sawn material), maybe backed up with a suitable sealant (some of your CT1 now I've located a local supplier)?

I was thinking of filling the groove with a suitable sealant and bringing the two halves together but spaced apart by one or two washers at each of the bolting points. This would allow me to bolt the two halves together tightly whilst leaving a gap for whatever sealant to maintain some mass and so flexibility.

The bottom line is I have little to lose here so am happy to try a few things to see what works out best. Anything to get a nearly new washing machine and know that now only 1,499,999 washing machines will be landfilled this year (fingers crossed) :-)

All the best ..

T i m

p.s. I have just peeled both the test blobs of silicone and Tigerseal from the plastic tub without too much difficulty. I will try some fish tank silicone and the CT1 next. ;-)

[The Medway Handyman]

Where did you find the CT1 Tim?

[T i m]

I rang the distributors and they suggested I try my local independent builders merchants. I asked about the 'sheds' and he suggested places like City Electrical (he did also offer that if I had trouble finding some to call back on Monday and I could speak to the rep for my area).

A quick Google showed a couple of CE's fairly local and a call to one suggested a small stock of CT1 (in some of the colours) but none of the solvent.

Bless him though, he was about to close (5 mins) but offered to stay open for me if it was urgent (I thanked him for his kind offer and said I would see him Monday). ;-)

When I get some I'll try a head_to_head blob test against some fish_tank (high modulus?) silicone like:

to see if it is stickier than the Unibond 'general purpose sealant' I've already tried.

All the best .. and thanks for the heads up Dave.

T i m

[dennis]

You need a mechanical joint really.. if you can you need to apply the sealant with the gap open a bit and then clamp it after the sealant has set. That way the clamping force will keep the sealant in place rather than any adhesive properties it has.

[geoff]

In message , T i m writes

There are spring clips that look like captive nuts (look in the RS catalogue or similar), but have teeth which once pushed home, will stay in position. We use them on some fans to ho;d the top and bottom together

I don't know what they are called, but they will do exactly what you want mechanically

[T i m]

I think I'll get that ok with the 17 bolts Dennis but the mating faces aren't exactly 'matching'.

Understood. I was looking at the sealsdirect link again that Pete C gave earlier and was considering either a flat neoprene strip trapped between the two halves and / or a larger section trapped in the 'groove' that is around one of the faces (the groove is slightly tapered, about 6mm wide by 8mm deep)?

I think the latter might be better because the groove is directly between the edge of the drum line rather than toward the outer edges of the flange so might not try to distort the plastic as much as something trapped between the flanges themselves.

Neoprene siliconed into the groove maybe and tightened in two stages as you suggest (to 'load' the seal)?

All the best ..

T i m

[Pete C]

I've done something similar on a cracked WM tub, used a fillet of silicone smoothed with wet finger to triangular shape, then short overlapping strips of aluminium tape on top.

This gives 2 sealing methods so should have a good chance of not leaking.

Using masking/PVC tape to get neat edges on the silicone fillet really helps.

cheers, Pete.

[T i m]

I think that part is covered ok thanks Geoff.

If you imagine bringing two bucket rims together and laying 17 lipsticks around the join and at 90 degrees to the join (so parallel to the length of the two buckets) that's what I started with.

Then saw the two buckets back into two pieces along the seam (like sawing the lady in half) sawing through the 17 lipsticks at the same time that's what I have now.

The lipsticks are in fact moulded plastic 'lugs' and would originally be clearance drilled on one half and a tapping type clearance on the other to take these ..

Screw ..

front half back half did consider buying the new (boltable) tub halves but it would also need new drum, bolts, suspension dampers (because they are all different apparently) and that all adds up to ~£300 .. :-(

All the best ..

T i m

[T i m]

I might be tempted to plastic weld a crack, if it was easy to get at etc?

Agreed.

More good tips .. thanks Pete ;-)

Apparently (and logically I guess) that CT1 stuff Dave (TMH) suggested can't be tooled with a wet finger (surprising that eh ). You have to spray it with their solvent first. Sounds like it's as much fun to get off yer hands as the full fat Gripfill then .. ;-)

All the best ..

T i m