Removing sealant

March 1, 2016

Sealant is not a material I like. It has great water repelling properties but it’s a pain to install. It’s also pretty annoying if you need to remove it. For the bathroom refit we wanted to re-use the door of the shower cubicle. To remove the door, I had to unscrew the frame and then cut through the sealant. In this case the oscillating multi-tool I purchased for the grout removal came in handy. With a knife blade it made quick work of separating the frame from the wall and tray.

I then used a retractable knife to remove the excess sealant. The final step took several hours, this was to coat the sealant in a chemical gel coat sealant remover. The sealant remover works in a similar manner to a paint stripper, it softens the sealant so it can be more easily scraped or rubbed off the material. When the gel dries it makes the sealant hard and brittle, it forms a white powered when rubbed off the metal. My plastic scraper was ineffective against the sealant but I found that the abrasive part of a kitchen sponge worked well. A green plastic kitchen scourer was too abrasive and scratched the aluminium frame. Wire wool was needed in that case to polished the surface to remove scratches. Eventually, the door was rubbed and polished free of any trace of my rubbery nightmare.

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By Andy from Workshopshed 3 Comments

  Posted in: Repairs Tags: sealant