We have some Kef speakers (cast alloy construction) that had that silky rubber coating. Needless to say this coating is a ghastly sticky mess.
We?re using acetone at present but wondering if there?s a better solvent to remove this horrid stuff. Not too worried if it removes the underlying paint as some has come off already.
Wondering about petrol but not the nicest stuff to work with...
Tim
Toluene based thinner, or maybe this:
Try brake fluid. It is a surprisingly good solvent for degraded tacky rubbery plastics. Wear suitably thick impervious gloves.
I'd be very interested if anyone has actually tried that, or found something else that does work.
I keep finding more and more things that have this awful coating, some of them quite small and delicate, and I've not had much success in the past.
Sounds interesting. I?ll have a rummage in my garage...
Tim
I've removed this vile stuff from a few cameras and binoculars as well as plastic (computer mice) using White Spirit. Doesn't harm plastic and a microfibre cloth with copious amounts of white spirit and patience works well.
I've done that but it makes me feel that a better solvent would reduce the amount of scrubbing required.
This was discussed over in uk.tech.digital-tv very recently. One point raised was that no matter what solvent you use, the sticky goo will come through again in a matter of weeks/months.
Is there any Fablon-like adhesive vinyl material which you could use to permanently cover the sticky surface and wouldn't look too bad? Loads on ebay, but I've no idea whether or not it is any good.
We have 5 to do. Acetone does work but it?s very labour intensive. Hoping to find a better/quicker solvent.
Tim
Not if you remove it all!
Fablon on Kef egg speakers? Hmm, no thanks.
Tim
Perhaps a flocking coat - usually applied as a base adhesive, then the flock fibres applied after.
OK. Drastic, but effective. I had assumed you were just trying to remove the sticky mess which leaches out of the rubber stuff rather than the whole coat.
Didn't realise they were egg-shaped. No, Fablon definitely won't do!
There have been a lot of threads on this stuff in various groups recently and I've not seen any consensus on what to do. If it is just a coating then it probably does have a solvent if you can identify what the paint is. I would however suggest that also you check up on the speaker units surrounds cones and suspension, as many speakers of a similar age seem to be almost write offs due to the plastic going hard, or falling to bits. Also be aware that if you create any dust from removal of the coating its going to be bad news for speakers.
Brian
Was it by any chance 3M Nextel? If it was then they might know the solvent, but I have to say that particular paint was used for defence jobs and nobody reported problems other than the occasional chip due to poor bonding to the in underlying material, usually metal. Brian
The problem is finding a solvent which doesn't dissolve everything else as well as the coating. The ones I tried were acetone (pretty useless on the rubber but turned many other plastics into goo). Isopropanol (little or no effect on the coating but safe on almost everything). Ethanol and Methanol - as for Isopropanol. Ether (quite effective but difficult to source and for use outdoors only. Methylene Chloride (removed the coating but also the various thermoplastic substrates and again, only use outdoors). White Spirit (removed the coating more easily than I had expected when used with microfibre cloth and pretty harmless to other plastics etc. )
Eventually I settled on the white spirit as being benign as far as user and various substrates were concerned but also quite effective at removing the goo after leaving it covered in a rag soaked in white spirit for half an hour and then attacking it with a microfibre cloth soaked in white spirit. The soft rubber coating certainly didn't come back afterwards.
Only about 30 mins as I recall.
Indeed - fairly shiny plastic underneath, not as nice as the rubbery stuff when new but infinitely preferable once it had gone gooey.
Ah - several years, one pair of binoculars 10 years so far.
For a respirator?
How long did you leave it?
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