RTV sili vs regular clear? sili problem..

Ok so I’m sure this question has already been asked many times but here we Go…
What’s the difference between the two besides color? I’ve been using clear and have a lot of practice and whenever I do it I get cracking and chunks falling out. Like within a week. I know I’m not doing it wrong. (i mean c’mon its the easiest thing ever) is this normal? The only throw I’ve done it on is my DM2 but I’m getting a marmot on wednesday and I know I’m gonna have to replace the response sometime… So I was wondering, is this normal? Or do I just Yoyo too much? Lol. And lastly does the blue RTV stuff last longer? Or is it really just an aesthetic preference call?
Thanks everyone.

You just pour the silicone in, let it settle, shave out the excess on the yoyo.

Could you explain your problem more? Cracking? If you wear it in, it should be quite smooth.

RTV silicone is not self settling, and aquires only a few percent more skill to do it. You custom shave down the silicone in the groove to a prefered thickness. And you just clean it up all manually.
RTV is also a bit more strong, as to comapared with Flowable.

Blue RTV silicone is said to be weaker, cheap quality, but I think it works perfectly fine. Red is Hi-Temp, and seems to be tougher, works longer…If you got the money, you coulf try red, but blue is fine too.

2 Likes

I just use the stuff you can find at a 99 cent store, and it works fine.
Make sure that there are no air bubbles or anything.

Generally when I’m re-siliconing something, I put quite a bit of excess. then I take a spoon (to make a concave sorta thing) and scoop off the excess. What I’ve done in the past (and I’m not sure if this is a good idea) is put a toothpick in the freshly set silicone before removing excess to kinda get rid of any possible air bubbles.

wait about 4 hours for it to set, then remove any further excess that might be on the yoyo itself, and not in the groove.
then wait 24 hours, and you should be good to go. From what I’ve seen, it’s responsive for the first couple throws, but afterwards it’s good as gold.

Another tip, I’d recommend cleaning out the recess really well beforehand. I like to scrape it clean of any visual residue with a toothpick or qtip, then put a little rubbing alcohol on a qtip and rub it around the recess.

It just cracks and chunks fall out. It never stays nice and clean. I know I’m doing it right I mean cmon its super easy… maybe I’m using the wrong kind. I think maybe ill try the red and see how that goes…
Thanks for your help!

If it’s cracking and chunks are falling out then it’s probably not silicone. It may be caulk. If that’s the case then DO NOT USE it anymore. anything that says RTV is what you want. Yes flowable is rtv as well.

Yes, I agree with Icthus. You might not be using silicone. Silicone never drys hard.

No I’m sure its the right stuff. I can tell the difference between caulk and flowable sili. It’s prolly just an error on my part. I’ll just try the red stuff and see if that helps. Thanks for all your help tho guys!
I use the same stuff everyone else uses tho. This stuff:

post pics of the silicone in your yoyo? I wanna see the “cracking” you were talking about.

here it is. You can see where chunks fell out and started to crack in other places. It’s weird. It’s really not that bad right now cause I just re-silied it but that’s only four days old


Looks like there are air bubbles in the white parts. Use a tooth pick to see if they come out.

And for the most part, it looks perefectly fine. Just play with it a bit to wear it in/down.

You may be using an old tube. Silicone does go bad eventually.

All silicone is RTV. RTV stands for room temperature vulcanization. Which means it dries at room temperature. The difference between silicone is gasket maker and flowable. Gasket maker is harder to work with than flowable but will usually last longer. Flowable sets in by it self and air bubbles are less common.

[quote=“skeletonboy333,post:10,topic:29295”]
Looks like there are air bubbles in the white parts. Use a tooth pick to see if they come out.

And for the most part, it looks perefectly fine. Just play with it a bit to wear it in/down.

[/quot
No, those aren’t air bubbles. I make sure not to have any when I do it. Those are chunks of sili that fell out and also splits where the sili is starting to come apart. Maybe it is just old sili and it doesn’t cure properly…

Try a new tube. Poke at the white parts, what are they? Old chunks of silicone?

those are either chunks of your old silicone that you didn’t clean out, air bubbles, or bad silicone.

Make sure you completely clean out your recess, and get rid of air bubbles.
You might also wanna stop by a 99 cent store and pick up a new tube of silicone.

Well its gotta be bad silicone then I clean my recesses out very thoroughly before i re-sili my throw. I know how to do it. I’ll just try buying a new tube and see if that helps. Thanks