Correct Sealant?

Lots of good info above. I’ll offer one tip: if you need to “tool” either life caulk or the 3m products, get some paint thinner (or mineral spirits). Dip you finger in the thinner and the caulk will not stick to you finger. I generally wet an old rag with thinner and periodically wipe my finger. Works awesome.

Very similar to the process of tooling painters caulk where you wet (or lick - yes yuck) you finger. I learned this trick from an old school painter “no one had ever made a better caulking tool than your finger”.
 
Lots of good info above. I’ll offer one tip: if you need to “tool” either life caulk or the 3m products, get some paint thinner (or mineral spirits). Dip you finger in the thinner and the caulk will not stick to you finger. I generally wet an old rag with thinner and periodically wipe my finger. Works awesome.

Very similar to the process of tooling painters caulk where you wet (or lick - yes yuck) you finger. I learned this trick from an old school painter “no one had ever made a better caulking tool than your finger”.

Will Acetone or MEK work for tooling Life products and 3M 4000?
 
Will Acetone or MEK work for tooling Life products and 3M 4000?

They probably will, BUT acetone dries really fast. I’m not too familiar with MEK. Thinner or spirits stay damp on an old rag for quite some time.
 
This has been discussed many times on this Forum. Regardless, I just had my entire 52 sedan bridge re-caulked and the port lites re-bedded. I had a commercial contractor do the work. They used Sikaflex 295UV for it all. The results are excellent. And, FYI most of the OEM builders are now using the Sika 2XX products for the boat seams and glazing not requiring structural adhesive properties. To use the 3M 4000, 4200, or 5000 adhesives for joint sealant will be difficult and the results will be marginal at best especially with respect to tooling the joint. When the contractor was looking at the boat we discussed Life-Caulk and the response was it doesn't stand up to UV well and tends to "chalk up".....
 
I'm in the process of resealing some of the joints on our 420 DB. My plan is to reseal wit the sikaflex listed above. The current caulk is a mixture of old and new. I removed the bold of it but having a tough time with some of the joints. Any recommendations on what to use to resolve and break up what remains?
 
A plastic razor blade is a nice tool. You can also put it into a scraper and use it that way. But, honestly, in the end... get what you can, but don't drive yourself crazy. If it's hanging on that tightly, it earns the right to stick around longer ;) But the plastic scraper makes pretty easy work of things.
 
I'll throw this in as additional information - As the boat is out of the water to make repairs due to a lightning strike I went ahead and am having the rub rail removed and the deck to hull joint cleaned out and re-sealed. I will say that in looking at the joint the sealant application was executed poorly and there are indications of water intrusion. Some of the sealant had completely separated from the substrate and essentially was hanging there. The rub-rail was very easy to remove BTW (we are only doing the aft and up about 1/3 the way on the hull sides. They are in the process of cleaning out the joint and sanding / cleaning the FRP substrate then we will re-caulk using 3M 5200. The plastic rub-rail will get the top seam caulked using Sikaflex 295UV. The bottom of the rub-rail will not get sealed so any moisture can drain out.
 
Sealants are a great many now, but before you apply them, check their properties. Canadian sealant - gasket can be used only for interleaf sealing of two or more rows of joints. Due to low mechanical strength is not desirable to use for single row seams. Especially for the outer sealing of seams. It is resistant to oil, but it swells up and wears away from petrol even when mixed with water. It is best to use aviation sealants U30MS. Three-component (base + paste 9 + diphenyl guanidine). When it dries, it becomes like rubber and is very strong mechanically. The colour is black. More information here https://sealwithease.com/concrete-sealer/.
 
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