CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**Curt Palme**

So I use a Ronco food dehydrator to cure the silicone when sealing tubes. It works like a hot damn, taking 2-3 days to cure. I was in a bit of a rush this week, so I decided to drape the tube in the dehydrator with two cloth placemats, to seal the heat in. I figured if 110 degrees was good, then 150-150 degrees was better, right? Left the tube in for 24 hours, the silicone was dry, I bolted the G90 tube back into the LC housing, and poured in glycol. The glycol came out the sides of the tube as fast as I poured it in.

WTF?

What I saw was kinda funny. THe silicone had dried so quickly that it had pulled back from the metal housing of the tube mount frame, leaving about 1/64 gap between the silicone and the metal. THe tube was fine. So I drained the glycol, and let the new silicone air dry for 4 hours, then sat it in the dehydrator with no placemats over the tube.

Perfection! Thumbs Up

So a word to the wise, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Mr. Green

Jeremy112 · Joined: 28 Sep 2006 Posts: 2649 Location: Fond du Lac, WI

Ronco - We make CRT repairs easy! ™

dturco · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 4:14 pm Post subject:

But did you use Ginsu knives to cut out the silicone? It slices, it dices, and it removes silicone in the finest slices. Ginsu, operators are standing by, because they don't have seats.

Tim in Phoenix · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 4409 Location: Phoenix

Hmmm

Possibly the reason some green LUGs cracked in service? Maybe stresses were set up in the silicone.

.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 5:50 pm Post subject:

I don't buy it Tim. Chip had a green die in his Ampro 4600 and I believe that was an original tube, and I've seen imploded tubes in NEC sets, G70s, etc as well. It's not limited to green tubes and G90s. Smile

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 9:58 pm Post subject:

Curt, does this mean you projectors will come with a free set of steak knives?

Ile · Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:23 am Post subject:

Heat will make drying faster, but air humidity is needed for silicones drying process.

Around 50% RH would be ideal, lower than 20% RH will stop drying process. Sometimes also too high RH will be bad.

draganm · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado

Silicone doesn't really dry, it cures through a chemical reaction. Concrete is like this as well, it's why you can pour concrete under water.
For curing Silicone, 50% humidity and 70 degree farenheit is what's recommended by the manufacturer. The silicone cures by pulling moisture in from the atmosphere, the moisture is a catalyst. from Dow

loudmouse2 · Joined: 30 Sep 2009 Posts: 72 Location: Portland, Oregon

Is Runco a division of Ronco? Where they paint them black and charge 10X the price for them.
Is there a Ron Popiel Pocket CRT PJ?

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2013 5:10 pm Post subject: