The sticky rubber syndrome.

[Allan Black]

You have to wonder how world famous companies can produce a product that slowly dissolves into a sticky, what I’ll call it a mess because it is. About 15yrs ago I bought a Manfrotto 523 PROi video camera handle. And it’s been a great tool, been doing its job well, but now it’s time to sell it. But the rubber surrounding the control panel has become very sticky to the point where it’s unusable, so I looked around for a remedy, and I see where there’s a few fixes.

Alcohol on a rag can possibly restore the rubber surface to its original state, so I tried some Vodka, yeah I know, one for the handle, one for me etc. I tried a small area, left it for 24hrs and noting nothing untoward, I did the rest of the handle with a Vodka wet rag. It’s taken a couple of hrs. and when the Vodka evaporates it’s still a might sticky, probably how it first arrived. Very long term I don’t know yet but indications are it’ll be ok.

Disclaimer blah blah blah.
Cheers.

[Larrie Easterly]

What you may be experiencing is the silicone leaching out of the simulated rubber. I had a silicone phone case that did the same thing. There was no way I could clean it off.

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

You have to wonder how world famous companies can produce a product that slowly dissolves into a sticky, what I’ll call it a mess because it is.

Canon had this problem with their tactile feel silicone rubber on their broadcast ENG lenses some years back. After a few years, you ended up with a gunky sticky mess that discolored your hands, clothes, and almost anything else that came in contact with the handgrip. Yes, with alcohol Isopropyl alcohol works best in the alcohol family for removing this rubber mess. Ask nicely and your local pharmacist may supply you with some. By far the best to help preserve this rubber mess coating is good old motoring 'Armorall Protectorant'. The stuff you spray on your car dashboard to protect it from the ravages of sun and climate. Work plenty of that in until you have excess residue then wipe off the excess Armorall. Doing it in the sun on a warm day seems to help the Armorall soak into the silicone rubber. It's worked better than anything else I've tried... at least with Canon's version of these rubberized coatings.

Chris Young

[Allan Black]

Thanks Chris very interesting, ah yes miracle Armor All, they have a few versions now. In 1962, chemist Joe Palcher discovered a 'miracle formula' that protects rubber, plastic, and vinyl from UV radiation and ozone. I used it on my guitar case, one trick I found was to keep it out of any dusty areas while it dried. Why can’t we come up with something like that Chris.

Larrie, yeah it can be a pain. After rubbing like fury, I notice there’s no residual on the wet Vodka rag, so it looks like the alcohol is dissolving the sticky.

Guys, maybe this thread should be a sticky, no pun :)
Cheers.

[Andrew Smith]

Polymers, brought to you by a bunch of monomers. That's chemistry for you.

By sheer coincidence, a concrete sealer I was importing (long ago) was acrylic polymer based (water chemistry) and didn't break down under sunlight (with it's UV rays) like regular petrochemical concrete sealants do after six to twelve months outdoors. Amazing stuff.

That said, my only other thought was to apply some "sacrificial absorbent stuff" to take up the tackiness from the rubber. Something like talc, but obviously these are going to change the surface colour away from the black of the rubber. Have fun with it and let us know how it goes.

Andrew

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

Yes, with alcohol Isopropyl alcohol works best in the alcohol family for removing this rubber mess. Ask nicely and your local pharmacist may supply you with some

Do you really have to "ask your local pharmacist nicely" to get a bottle of alcohol in Australia? When the pandemic began, there was a period of a few months where it was hard to find in the US because it is widely used for cleaning/sterilizing. But the supply came back and you can easily find it in any drug store or grocery store here now. It's cheap and handy for all kinds of cleaning purposes, I always have bottles of both 70% and 90% isoproply alcohol handy at my home. I wouldn't use vodka, pretty sure it contains other stuff that will leave a sticky coating when it dries and it only has about 40% alcohol content.

[Christopher Young]

Sorry, Boyd. I should have been more specific. I meant to say 100% Isopropyl Alcohol as it has 0% moisture. Because of that it evaporates very quickly and is the best for cleaning electronics. We used it for years to clean the rotary head drums in nearly all the tape decks, Betacam, Digi-Beta, DVC Pro, DVCam and reel to reel 1" 'C' format recorders etc, etc. Generally, our local pharmacies wouldn't have much over 70%, some may have 90% but I've always had to ask them to get in the 100% pure stuff. This tends to be a little more expensive but worth it for electronics.

For local Aussie buyers here is a supplier that can supply 99 & 100% Isopropyl alky.

Chris Young

https://www.sydneysolvents.com.au/so...ropyl-alcohol/

[Boyd Ostroff]

OK, I see. Yeah, I usually only see 70% and 90% at the grocery store. There's also denatured alchohol that you can buy in cans at paint and hardware stores in the US. I always assumed that was 100% alcohol but not completely sure. Works well for cleaning and evaporates very quickly, definitely more potent than the stuff from the grocery store.

Personally, I would have assumed that alcohol would attack rubber parts and make them more sticky! Will have to give it a try someday, I have some old stuff with the "sticky rubber syndrome" myself.

[Chris Soucy]

As a postscript to this thread, I had need of my two handed circular saw a few weeks ago, for the first time in at least 8 years.

Yep, you've guessed - the entire handle system was a sticky mucky gooey shambles.

I tried terps (terpentine) my "go to" solvent of first recourse for stuff like labels, you know, the ones that should be peelable but won't shift with TNT and tar splashes on car paintwork. Can't use it on PVC as it dissolves it.

Didn't do squat for the handle though.

Having caught this thread thought I'd give Meths (Methylated Spirit) a try with some paper kitchen towel.

Hey presto, keep it nice and "wet" and off comes the gunk.

Bugger, that means I'll actually have to use that damn saw.

You can find both Meths & Turps in the cleaning section of any supermarket in the old British Empire (except the one that got away!), even in India, believe it or not.

Regards,

CS

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

Personally, I would have assumed that alcohol would attack rubber parts and make them more sticky! Will have to give it a try someday, I have some old stuff with the "sticky rubber syndrome" myself.

That's why I specifically said and meant to say that 100% Isopropyl alcohol was the best to "remove" the sticky mess. In the past, I have stripped 100% of all that sticky gunk off Canon B4 lens grips so there was not a trace of the silicone tactile paint left. For preserving that silicone 'rubber' paint I've found Armorall to work and last the best. In fact, if you start using the Armorall early on in the life of whatever has that rubberized paint then generally the rubber texture seems to retain its properties for way longer, like years longer with regular applications.

Chris Young

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Chris Soucy

You can find both Meths & Turps in the cleaning section of any supermarket in the old British Empire (except the one that got away!), even in India, believe it or not.

Yes Meths, that doesn't surprise me as methylated spirit contains ethyl alcohol mixed with methanol, another alcohol and other components, whereas isopropyl alcohol is a pure alcoholic liquid that has no added components. So meths can and often does have pretty high alcohol content.

Turpentine and Mineral Turpentine commonly referred to as "Turps" are two different things. Mineral Turpentine is an inexpensive petroleum-based replacement for vegetable-based Turpentine. Real Turpentine
is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin obtained from trees, primarily pine trees.

Both types of turps can affect different materials in different ways so always pays to check carefully as to which works best without causing damage by testing on a small area if possible.

For cleaning and "de-gumming" sticky residues my regular go-to is 100% Isopropyl.

Chris Young

[Andrew Smith]

With the rubber transport rollers on laser printers (and also rubber pinch rollers in various equipment) it was always important to use isopropyl alcohol instead of metho (methylated spirits). Metho has various additives in it so societal desperados don't resort to drinking it as a cheap alcohol. They type of alcohol in metho is bad for human bodies.

If you used metho, the rubber bits would end up getting sticky and tacky because of the contaminants that had been added. It was particularly critical as an issue in laser printers.

So isopropyl alcohol it is, and I've always been happy to use the medical grade sterilisation wipes that you can get at the chemist.

Andrew

[Christopher Young]

Agreed. There is always one of the 100 wipe Isopropyl packs in my camera kit. Along with Wet Wipes and a small makeup kit for those rushed shiny people interviews. The Wet Wipes and Iso wipes have proven their worth many times over.

Chris Young

[Boyd Ostroff]

I have been processing massive amounts of geodata recently and constantly have to do "housecleaning" to keep any free space across my two primary 2tb SSD's. So, this morning I dug out an old 2tb Seagate external hard disk from the closet and (ugh) it had a serious case of the "sticky rubber syndrome". Why did they think it was a good idea to put a rubberized coating on a hard disk enclosure?

Anyway, I grabbed my bottle of 91% isopropyl alcohol and wiped it down. What a mess, it made everything even stickier and worse than before. But I kept going, and now I "get it".... the idea is that the alcohol dissolves the sticky stuff from the surface and exposes the firm layer below. After a few minutes I had a nice matte-finish surface.

Thanks Christopher - DVinfo to the rescue again! And the 91% variety of isopropyl alcohol from the supermarket gets the job done (although I don't doubt that 100% would be even better).

[Christopher Young]

Exactamundo sir. It does require a bit of elbow grease but yes there is gold underneath that Okefenokee Swamp mess when you persevere.

Chris Young