[Mikey4865]

Hello,

I have a many sheets of aluminum about .050 inches thick,12 in x 12 in.
There is a thin layer of Silicone on it and I need to remove it without damaging the aluminum material underneath. I have a lot of these sheets and would rather not sit down and scrap them with a razor for a week. Anyone have any ideas of how to safely remove the silicone layer in a timely fashion?

[Geof]

Nothing sticks really well to aluminum so you might be able to 'peel' it off with a high pressure water blaster. This would not harm the aluminum underneath.

You would have to fastem them down onto some plywood,or something, otherwise they are going to fly around and get bent just from the water impact.

[Mikey4865]

Sounds good I'll give it a shot tomorrow and let you know how it works.

[packrat]

It sounds like you have the material that hot foil dies are made from. Is the rubber an orange color? If it is the hot foil stuff, you'll be disappointed in the aluminum. It is usually a dead soft grade. Real gummy to machine and not very strong. The rubber is thermo bonded and a bear to get off. Good luck

[Mikey4865]

I could see some orange but more yellow, it comes of with some solvent and a razor blade but it just takes to damn long.

[S3MIH3MI]

Try a paint stripper. Should just wipe off after a few minutes.

[DMF_TomB]

if you are talking about silicone rubber a rotary wire brush will remove it. a 3" or 4" cup type wire brush twisted crimps is coarser than straight wire spinning at 10,000 rpm will tear through silicone rubber throwing it in all directions at a massive rate.
.
it will take longer to clean up the mess than the time it took to wire brush it.
.
if concerned about the metal part try a straight wire brush of thinner wire compared to a coarser twisted knot wire brush.

[paul3112]

There is a silicon removal fluid that they use prior to spray painting ( prepsol silicon off)

I have used distilate to soak alu with tube type silicon

Paul