Sikaflex 221 as Outer Seam Sealant?

[New Kentish Campers]

I used Sikaflex when I did my van and it was fine. Before:

After:

And once painted:

To be fair, there's plenty of sealants on the market, one of the best tricks is to get a tube of the stuff that's well in its sell by date to begin with, and then use a propriety fluid, like panel wipe/degreaser to get the joints nice.

Oh, and dont put too much sealer in the joins otherwise you get a terrible mess and it's not cheap either. Better to but a little in at a time and work it well into the joint, particularly if you are new to all this, and save your time for the last application and smooth it off nicely. Get it right and the job will look the part

[Cruz]

Are there any tips for applying seam sealer so neatly?

[bmouthboyo]

Looks spot on kent.

Can i ask what the process is?

Bare metal
Vactan
Primer
Lay bead
Smooth off?

How do you "work it in"?

Thanks

[New Kentish Campers]

Yes, sanded & clean bare metal, vactan, 2 pack etch primer[ Vactan's manufacturers reckon its ok to over paint with an etch primer], 2 pack high-build primer '[all flatted between every other coat] and then finally, the sealant. Trick is to cut the nozzle on the tube a little smaller than the seam itself so as to avoid loads of product getting where it doesn't need to be and just squeeze the trigger on the app.gun to 'push' the stuff into the seam. 2 schools of thought here: If you use a cheaper sealant, then try and do it in 2 go's to allow for the sealer 'sagging' i.e it looks great at first but looks worse and hour or so later on because it dropped/sagged so you add another layer, or, use the 221 and do it in one hit, as I did.

And lastly, use a lint-free cloth when doing your sealing, otherwise little particles of lint will stick in with the sealant and spoil its appearance. I use 3m's finnesse cloth, which I realise is very expensive against other stuff on the market, but does do the job, first time. And its also excellent for final paint polishing too. I used a water-based panel wipe to wipe the sealer and for the final panel clean before I began spraying my various paints onto the van.

Lastly, I've replaced the front wheel arch's and tall rear wheelarch's on my van, plus the o/s lower sill and those little rear filler panels that live on the bottom of the corner pillars; all were treated/sealed in this fashion.

Hope that helps

Doug.

[Mickyfin]

Some great advice in this thread, aswel as elsewhere in the forums on seams etc, but I have a couple of questions if I may, as Im about to tackle my seams..

1. What is "Fertain"? Its mentioned earlier in this thread about fertaining the seems. Confused.

Also, Is a a wire wheel simply an attachment to go on a drill, or angle grinder?

I have access to both a drill, and angle grinder, but no shotblaster type system so will be manually gutting the seams.

Thanks in advance

[Jonnyb416]

I think Fertan is similar to Vactan Micky.
I used a wire wheel on my seams; attached to a drill, but I found my Dremel did a better job.

Jon.

[Mickyfin]

Cheers Jon, I must look into getting a dremel, as I hear they are handy on the window edges too.

[bootie3367]

Yes, sanded & clean bare metal, vactan,

Just playing devils advocate here, but why waste good vactan on clean bare metal , it's not going to do anything as there is no rust to convert.

If the metal is really rust free then just etch prime and away you go.

As mentioned in another post, vactan has an acrylic base, which when dry can leave a slighly rubbery finish and spoil the look if your not careful.

Like I said just playing devils advocate

jon

[bmouthboyo]

I used Sikaflex when I did my van and it was fine. Before:

After:

And once painted:

To be fair, there's plenty of sealants on the market, one of the best tricks is to get a tube of the stuff that's well in its sell by date to begin with, and then use a propriety fluid, like panel wipe/degreaser to get the joints nice.

Oh, and dont put too much sealer in the joins otherwise you get a terrible mess and it's not cheap either. Better to but a little in at a time and work it well into the joint, particularly if you are new to all this, and save your time for the last application and smooth it off nicely. Get it right and the job will look the part

Looks like a great job! I take it you sanded the paint back to bare metal? It looks like you have used a lot of filler, in terms of area not thickness, can I ask how you know where to add etc as I find it hard to know where to gauge bits should be.

Also would this be good to use:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180835713728? ... 1423.l2649

Cheers

[New Kentish Campers]

Thank you. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

There's little filler in it though You can see one dent to the right of the fridge vent, and that's there because I couldn't get behind it as the kitchen unit was in the way, but it's not deep and the other bit is to the edge of the drivers door, where I found a little pin dent after sanding the panel.
I think you meant where you need to fill areas? Well, before you begin sanding anything, take a squint along the panels to try and see any little dents. It's very easy to miss a little dent and only see if once you've painted it You can see my van in its primer coat; that's after it was flatted - wet flatted in some places, and dry sanded everywhere else. Basically, after you've looked for little dents, sand the panels down as required so you have a nice smooth surface, apply your etch primer/filler primer and then dust a little dark colour, like matt black over the primer once its cured. As you then flat the primer down, any low spots will still be showing the dark colour so you keep flatting until it disappears, thus leaving a perfectly flat surface [you can also buy dusting paint from motor factors for this very purpose, though I just use and old spray gun thats filled with matt black celly paint, for this very purpose, or you can of course use a more expensive aerosol. Oh, and use a decent rubber block to sand the panels, dont rely on your hands or you will never get a good, flat surface. Remember, preparation is key to a good result, paint only follows what's underneath it...

I took it back to bare metal only where I needed to, i.e where panels were replaced, but its just sanded back to the factory paint otherwise. My van had been poorly resprayed in cellulose or a single pack acrylic and there was also quite a lot of stone chip paint on the lower areas where it shouldn't have been, so I took the lot off with my DA sander.

The filler would be OK I think, try to buy the best you can afford; I like Plastic Padding PP100 because its flexible and nice to sand back; some fillers are hard to sand and difficuly to feather-in [i.e you cant 'loose' the edge into the metal work too easily]

Hope that helps

Doug.

[Mickyfin]

The filler would be OK I think, try to buy the best you can afford; I like Plastic Padding PP100 because its flexible and nice to sand back; some fillers are hard to sand and difficuly to feather-in [i.e you cant 'loose' the edge into the metal work too easily]

Hope that helps

Doug.

Hi Doug. Is this the right stuff? I need to get some too.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Plastic-Paddi ... 905wt_1149" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[New Kentish Campers]

Hi Micky,

No, that looks to be the standard one they they make, see if that seller can sell you the PP100 superfine stuff. It's not exactly cheap, but is really good to work with. Remember it's pot life - i.e time you can use it before it starts to cure, is under 10 minutes if the weathers warm, so take your time and put it on in stages, don't try to do it in all one go unless you are well used to this sort of stuff.

Here's a link to the main product, best try an auto-body factors to buy it, get the large can if you can because it's cheaper that way: http://www.loctite.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/h ... 2571360673

OR, if you have quite a lot of repairs to do which will use a fair bit of filler, then buy the cheaper stuff that Bmouthboyo shows, to get everything almost up to surface level, then put the good stuff on top to get the final finish. And don't worry if you have to use filler. There's nothing wrong with it if used as it is intended. It is liable to absorb water, so in those situations, use a fibreglass based product, or better still, lead. At least you van would be worth more in scrap value, if nothing else

I've found over the years, when I had my own shop anyway, that the cheaper fillers are prone to pin-holing and you often spend more time re-filling when the more expensive stuff meant you could do it in one go. When you are employing people, time is money!

[Mickyfin]

Thanks a lot for that, I now know what to go for, just as well I asked

[bmouthboyo]

Hi Micky,

No, that looks to be the standard one they they make, see if that seller can sell you the PP100 superfine stuff. It's not exactly cheap, but is really good to work with. Remember it's pot life - i.e time you can use it before it starts to cure, is under 10 minutes if the weathers warm, so take your time and put it on in stages, don't try to do it in all one go unless you are well used to this sort of stuff.

Here's a link to the main product, best try an auto-body factors to buy it, get the large can if you can because it's cheaper that way: http://www.loctite.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/h ... 2571360673

OR, if you have quite a lot of repairs to do which will use a fair bit of filler, then buy the cheaper stuff that Bmouthboyo shows, to get everything almost up to surface level, then put the good stuff on top to get the final finish. And don't worry if you have to use filler. There's nothing wrong with it if used as it is intended. It is liable to absorb water, so in those situations, use a fibreglass based product, or better still, lead. At least you van would be worth more in scrap value, if nothing else

I've found over the years, when I had my own shop anyway, that the cheaper fillers are prone to pin-holing and you often spend more time re-filling when the more expensive stuff meant you could do it in one go. When you are employing people, time is money!

So are all those white areas in your pics filler? Or the base paint not fully sanded away?

Cheers

[New Kentish Campers]

No, apart from the two filled areas I've mentioned, the rest is the factory original paint. Dark grey is the base primer, then light grey primer on top, and then the factory white paint which I sanded back to.

I might have confused you here my van was white all over, I decided to respray it in 2 colours because I fancied looking a bit different