Sealant

[Ris]

Whoops, sorry hit wrong button. Can anyone suggest a good quality sealant that can be kept in motorhome to be used in emergencies for both inside and out.

[rowley]

I don't keep sealant on board but I do carry a roll of duck tape. That has got me out of a few scrapes.

[Rayjsj]

I think Sikaflex 512 is just about the best, you do need a sealant gun though,and (as i found out) it does deteriorate with age...goes hard.

But it sticks just about anything to anything...permanently !! it's waterproof, stays white, real good stuff. :D

[breakaleg]

As rowley said; duck tape is an excellent stand by, you can then get the right sealent for the right job.

You wouldn't want to be messing around with sealant in the middle of the night, would you?

pete

[AnnPaul]

Duck Tape is the best thing to carry. Be warned I bought some tape at a show recently thinking it was a good price £1 a roll. But on a closer look it was called "Duct Tape" it was in the same colour packaging as Duck Tape but like thin paper. Make sure you get DUCK TAPE.

 

 

[Brian Kirby]

What you need will depend on what you want to do.  There are a number of sealants around, all designed for different jobs.  Some can be used in contact with others, some not (they react adversely in contact).  Some will be almost impossible to remove after they have cured, so might be inadvisable on internal surfaces.  Have you particular applications in mind? 

Sealing around showers can be made good, generally, with silicone bath sealants, but these are not intended, or suitable, for external use. 

I recently had to renew a bit of external sealant on our van, and was supplied with Teroson Terostat MS 939.  This is described as a one-component moisture-curing silane-modified polymer sealant.  All that means is that it needs no catalyst to activate, using just atmospheric humidity instead.  I have to say it is seriously good stuff, probably similar to the Sikaflex mentioned above.  It sets to a rubber like consistency, in which condition it is extremely tough and very elastic, having great resistance to snapping when all the elasticity is taken up.  It is an adhesive sealant, that can also be used as a filler, and has virtually zero shrinkage during, and after, curing.  It has very high adhesion to a wide range of surfaces, including many plastics, metals, and painted surfaces. 

However, it is an industrial sealant, not a DIY product.  It is distributed in UK by Loctite, who are now part of the Henkel group, along with Teroson, and some more familiar household names like Plastic Padding, Nitromors, Duck Tape, No More Nails, Pritt, and Unibond.

It is quite easy to use, though for neatness you do need to run masking tape down either side of the joint and strip this before it cures.  It can be neatened/smoothed with a finger, preferably, in view of its adhesion, protected in a latex glove.  It comes in standard 310ml cartridges, though these are aluminium and have to be pierced for the nozzle and must have a sealed base, containing silica crystals, removed before it can be gunned.  Loctite/Teroson technical service were excellent when I phoned and explained I had received the product but had no idea how to use it, or even get into the pack!

The point of all this detail is that I thought it one of the best products I had ever encountered - though my experience stopped with one-part polysulphides, which were once thought the bee's knees of sealants.  It would take care of many external sealing jobs around motorhomes, but it is rather unforgiving if the joint goes wrong.  For example, it took me virtually a whole, knackering, day to remove and clean this stuff from a duff joint (bad Hobby workmanship) about 600mm long, and about 15 minutes to run the new joint (which has since proved successful).  I'm very glad it worked, because I could do without a repeat of the removal phase, thank you very much!  Temporary, therefore, no; but as a permanent gap filler, adhesive, and sealant, I think among the best around.  Hope this helps, and no, I don't/didn't work for Henkel or any of their subsidiaries.