Removing silicone sealant

What you need is Unibond Silicone Sealant Remover, £7 from B&Q, the cheapest source that I have found. Now on my third (80ml) tube, used in different environments over the years. Just smear it on, generously, leave for about three hours, wipe off. Repeat as required. Way to go. Made for the job. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and get the right stuff.

Definitely DO NOT use acetone on anything acrylic. It will destroy it.

I guess you are right. No B&Q very near, Wickes is the closest, KilrockPRO Sealant & Adhesive Remover £8, UniBond Silicone Sealant Remover Tube £9.15 and a tool Vitrex Silicone Remover & Finisher £8 - Tool Use: Tile preperation (sic) tools

Given your recommendation I guess I'll go for the Unibond.

Wickes is much nearer. Turned up there and "sorry, we don't hold that item". A further 2 mile drive to Screwfix and bought the one you've mentioned. Now have to clean off the WD40 before applying it. There's a reason I hate "just do this little job" DIY,

Amazon is even easier as a supplier:

Unibond Silicone Sealant Remover £7:00 and on Prime delivery. Deduct the cost of a car trip to a shed, and it works out even cheaper.

I dread going around a relative's house sometimes :) The last "can you have a quick look 10 minute job" took the best part of a day :)

A few months back I used that product. I found that it's not instant- be prepared to wait a few hours and then maybe a second application to get the last of it off. However, with my job it was difficult to get a soft scraper in and some of the silicone had to be picked out in small lumps.

But when you add in the cost of Prime (£8.99 per month or £95 per year), it becomes really expensive.

It’s always possible to pay the delivery charge instead of joining Prime.

Amazon price £7:00 with £4:49 delivery, totalling £11:49. Sounds expensive, but the OP drove to a shed and paid £8:00, with the car’s cost per mile added on. That’s going to be 25p/mile minimum, which means that if he drove more than 14 miles in total then Amazon would have been the cheaper option.

I've had the best results by cutting away as much of the old silicone as possible with a plastic scraper or sharp blade first, then using a silicone remover to soften the residue. Wiping it down with isopropyl alcohol before applying new sealant also helps the new bead stick much better.

When I use Amazon, I lump together purchases to meet the free delivery hurdle. If I need something 'yesterday' (which doesn't happen very often) I bite the bullet & visit Toolsatan or Screwfix (almost next door to each other of course). I could walk there if it was a nice day.

That’s a workable plan…

Sounds good.

We have 200+ Amazon deliveries a year, so that’s less than 50p per delivery

- far less than the minimum second-class postage. And some of those deliveries contain more than ten items, mostly Subscribe And Save stuff that we can’t find cheaper elsewhere.

It seems common that both are close to one another.

My local Screwfix and Toolsatan have one small industrial unit in between them and share the same car park in a small self contained section of an industrial estate.

A bit too far to walk but if going to one of the outlets I tend to do other shopping close by.

In another part of the country where I regularly visit the branches are around a 15 second walk apart, again on an industrial estate.

I do note these days that Screwfix seems to be the preferred outlet by most trades people. Also by myself but I do tend to check to see which has the cheaper price for the same item.

In message <ofu6S.560$ snipped-for-privacy@fx08.ams, at 19:11:31 on Fri, 17 Jul

We get an average of one Prime delivery a day, so that's 30p each. And then there's the Streaming TV.

And?

Is this an entry in some kind of non sequitur competition?

It took a lot of effort to remove the silicone but I suspect that in the way it came off there was more than one layer to contend with.

I've a very trusty multi-blade penknife and the small blade was fairly good at getting under the silicone. I also did applications of remover after each apparent layer removal.

This is the first time I've done silicone sealant and once it was all off and I'd cleaned up around the area it only took about 15mins to apply the new seal. It's only about 1/8" wide and even my wife commented on how neat it was. Quite why there was so much there before is baffling as the shower tray and the tiles are quite a close fit.

Anyhow I've now got a mosly unused tube of silicone and 3/4 bottle of silicone remover which no doubt by the next time I need to use it will have expired.