long reach sealant guns?

[Cursitor Doom]

I need to seal around one side of a shower tray which is only about 2" away from a sink unit and a conventional gun won't get in to such a small gap. The nozzle alone will, of course, but it's not long enough to reach all the way to the back wall as required. Extended nozzles are available, but they're nowhere near long enough for my needs (13") I made one up from plastic piping, but the pressure required to get the sealant all the way up the pipe increases massively the longer the pipe is, it turns out, so everything comes to a standstill by the time it gets 6" up the pipe. Not even close. I really don't want to have to remove the sink + cabinet, but can't see any other way, since the shower *cannot* be sealed around the inside of the panels, the manufacturers insist. Any suggestions?

[GB]

Is the gap wide enough for a sealant gun? If so, can you make up an extended handle for a standard gun? It might be difficult to control though.

[Syd Rumpo]

The self-contained pressurised sealant dispensers have a smaller diameter than the standard gun types - I'd guess 30mm from memory - and you could possibly operate the nozzle with string or similar. They're also more expensive and hold less.

Cheers

[Cursitor Doom]

No, the gap I have to work with is 47mm to be precise and a standard size sealant tube fouls it by 3mm.

[Cursitor Doom]

On Fri, 06 Nov 2015 15:38:15 +0000, Syd Rumpo wrote: [...]

This stuff?

If they make a longer, slimmer version of this it could be just the job!

[spuorgelgoog]

You need to reduce the distance between the end of the piston and the nozzle end, whilst using a long pump.

Length of 15mm copper pipe, end stopped with a cork, as the piston, and a length of 20mm plastic conduit as a cylinder? or something like that.

Or a cake icing bag?

Owain

[Syd Rumpo]

Or a bicycle pump!

Cheers

[GB]

I suppose that you can't take the side panel out, stick a massive amount of sealant in the gap, then put the panel back? Or take the whole f***ing shower tray out, seal the side panel in, then put it back again, all complete? Or make a hole in the side of teh sink unit?

Quite frankly, even if I could find a long reach sealant gun to fit into a 44mm gap, I couldn't produce a decent bead of sealant that didn't need smoothing afterwards. YMMV.

[Cursitor Doom]

I appreciate your thoughts, but none of these ideas are really practicable, I'm afraid. :(

I have some white, plastic 90' 20mm angle strip which I could pre-bead and prod into position with a thin stick; that should probably work well and look reasonably neat, BUT the last two inches to be sealed, right at the back in the most inaccessible area, comprise the frame which is proud and contoured and consequently not amenable to this wheeze. Bummer! :(

[Weatherlawyer]

Can you tape the edges and then just spoon the filler along the edge and smooth it out after. Running a hard ball along the mastic will give an acceptable finish. Got any pictures?

Tip remove the tape asap as it tends to stick in damp conditions.

[Cursitor Doom]

Can't use tape as there's just not enough room to stick it in position. This will have to be done without such aids, I'm afraid.

[Cursitor Doom]

I like your thinking!

[dennis]

Buy some aquarium air pump tube and tape it to a stick and push the end on the sealant gun nozzle. Buy the silicon stuff as its more flexible.

Fill the gap with PVC cladding.

[Fredxxx]

Shouldn't the shower base to glass be sealed inside the shower, not externally?

[Cursitor Doom]

Logically that would make sense. But the manufacturer in question - Lake Bathrooms - state that it must be sealed *externally* so that any water which seeps through the vertical joints in the unit can only drain into the shower base then out via the plug hole.

[Chris French]

The instructions for our shower enclosure said specifically to seal around the outside of the enclosure, not the inside.

Though I think this is not really for the glass sections as such, but the the metal frame sections (it's a 3 sided glass enclosure with aluminium wall and corner sections. These are sealed outside because it possible for water to maybe go done some parts of the sections and bypass an internal seal.

If you sealed glass inside and frame outside there would be the possibility of leaks

[Tim Lamb]

[Lobster]

On 06 Nov 2015, Cursitor Doom grunted:

I have seen very small tubes of silicone (ie tiny versions of the conventional piston-style cylinders), roughly 0.75" diameter, 7" long - eg used to get them from Howden's in bespoke colours to match their worktops.

Can't find any online ATM, and I don't know if that might be a workable solution here anyway? but thought it was worth mentioning.

[Cursitor Doom]

OK. I'll probably regret this, but I'm going to make up a 'bicycle pump' type dispenser with a sub-inch diameter barrel and a short, curved nozzle. It's about time that lathe earned its keep.

[tabbypurr]

Repeat the above extension trick, but only have the last bit of the tube so narrow. Make the rest a good bit wider. So it's 1.5" of narrow tube connected to medium tube connected to wider tube.

NT