[Majestic]

Now that the cold weather is upon us do you change the rubber that you use ,  ie hard in the summer and soft in the winter.  or do you just use the same type all year round8)

[Peter Fogwill]

I would stick with the soft rubber all year.  Giulio from Pulex told me the hard rubber was developed for hot climates, and there is not much difference between the hard and soft rubber.  He showed me how to spot the difference when you have a hard and a soft rubber, what you do is hang each rubber by the same amount over the edge of a table; the soft rubber will hang down slightly lower than the hard rubber.

I do know from personal experience that more detailing needs to be done with a hard rubber as it doesn’t take the shape of the moulding as good, which means you have more chance of leaving soap down the sides of the glass.

Peter Fogwill

[The_Fed_Man]

>what you do is hang each rubber by the same amount over the edge of a table; the soft rubber will hang down slightly lower than the hard rubber.

So that's where you got that from!  Yes I have tried it and it does work.  Thought you were an Ettore man.

[Majestic]

At the Fed  trade show was a little jolly man giving pole demos, he suggested cutting your rubber at a angle
 \     / like so, he said that you will not have to detail as much as the rubber gets into the edge better and removes more water , any thoughts

[karlosdaze]

I think Ettore actually do a medium or medium soft grade.
The harder compounds will outlast the softer silicon rubber, but they require greater pressure on the glass. Hard rubber is particularly suited to longer clipless channels and for use in hot weather.
Soft compounds require less pressure on the glass and are therefore easier to work with, but tend to damage more easily. Soft rubber is ideal for pole work and for use on uneven glass.

[Majestic]

I bought a Unger Ergo-Tec squeegee  test kit a couple of years ago it had a hard and soft  rubber inside ,I could not tell the difference

[Peter Fogwill]

I only ever used Ettore at one time and used to get them sent from Jersey when they never had any at my local supplier.  My local supplier told me there was no difference between Pulex (they only had Pulex hard rubber at that time) and Ettore, I took him outside and showed him the difference.  Anyway Ettore started having problems with their rubber, some batches were faulty, the rubber is produced doubled with the rounded beaded parts on the outside edges, then they are slit up the middle to produce two separate rubber.  The slitting tool sometimes for some reason develops a wobble which results in narrow parts on the rubber.  This when used cleaning windows causes the solution to come from the back of the rubber onto the glass leaving little soapy lines on the glass. Not a problem if you wipe the rubber after every window but who wants to have to do that.  Ettore in the USA where they came from were not interested, they said they had no problems with their rubber.  I was so sick of throwing away brand new faulty rubber that I then changed to Pulex SOFT and have never used an Ettore rubber since.

It is hard to spot the problem with the naked eye but if you hold them up and look closely along the working edge you will see it.

Majestic

It is much better to cut a little square out the end of the rubber; this is better than the way you were shown.  Push your squeegee into the edge of the glass and look where the rubber is on top of the rubber moulding, now cut that part of rubber away in a square shape so as you are not cutting the whole breadth of the rubber.  Now when you pull your squeegee down the side of the window the old edge of your rubber still stops at the same place but your new working edge stops immediately at the end of the glass where the glass meets the rubber moulding.  You won't leave anything for detailing.

Peter

[shinnyshinner]

Even though the local supply here does not stock much at all the only thing he did was pulex rubbers so had to use but never had any problems
Alan

[STEVE71163]

We have always tended to use ettore rubbers as some of the others we have tried dont seem to last as long

Steve Lowe

[shinnyshinner]

Hi steve
Are ettore meant to be harder wearing?
Alan

[STEVE71163]

Hi Alan,
          To be honest we did find that years ago and we have just stuck with them but i would think that most of them now are pretty much the same I change my rubbers now much more often so don't really notice.

Steve Lowe

[AMG]

How often do you change your rubbers Steve?

Andy

[STEVE71163]

Hi Andy
          Sometimes i change the rubbers daily sometimes every other day as it saves time with less detailing for the sake of about £1.50.

Steve Lowe

[simonb]

I must be a skinflint cos I use my rubbers for a month or more and then cut them down to use in smaller squeegees!

[Majestic]

Simonb, What a skinflint   how can you make a rubber last so long I use a 14 inch for a day next day  put it in a 12 inch  then  cut it for a 6 inch  

[Tim Rose]

Can you cut the metal down and use a 4" on those little top lights?

[Majestic]

I dont see why not , as long as you smooth the edges after cutting your channel.
I was going to try that as I bought a few boxes of channels/ rubbers from the fed show

[Ian Lancaster]

I've always been an Ettore man.  Many years ago we had problems with streaking and I tackled Ettore about it at a Fed show.  They said it could be that my supplier didn't store them properly and the volatiles in the rubber had evapourated.

They gave me a huge bunch of replacements

Since then I always buy from the Fed, and keep them in sealed plastic sandwich bags after I've cut them to length.  Not had any trouble since, except when mistaking them for my lunch - bit chewy and hard to swallow. :

About detailing - I always wipe round the frame and the edge of the glass with a sill cloth before squeegeeing.  One quick wipe is all that's necessary - it removes all the "loose" water from the edge of the glass and I rarely have to detail.

Keep the sill cloth well wrung-out and this method will save you loads of time and frustration.

Cheers,

Ian

[M & C Window Cleaning]

Simonb, What a skinflint   how can you make a rubber last so long  I use a 14 inch for a day next day  put it in a 12 inch  then  cut it for a 6 inch

Pretty much the same here.  I use a 12, an 11 and a 5 inch.  I've done this for the better part of thirty years. The 5 inch one came about when I had a load of 5 inch fan lights to do some years ago so I cut one down. Been using it ever since.

I've used PULEX blades for many years with no problems. As for soft and hard ones this is all news to me. I know the ETTORE ones I used to use were a lot softer than the PULEX ones, and though I liked using them they used to damage a lot easier. I also found that every now and then my supplier got hold of a really bad batch and I'd have to take them all back, so I switched to PULEX and have had very few problems since.

[M & C Window Cleaning]

Many years ago we had problems with streaking and I tackled Ettore about it at a Fed show.  They said it could be that my supplier didn't store them properly and the volatiles in the rubber had evapourated.

Virtually all the problems I had with ETTORE blades were with bubbles in the rubber. Though it was a long time ago it was too frequent to ignore at the time so I tried different ones and settled with PULEX. I've had some PULEX blades stored for about a year now in a cardboard box and I'm just about to use them so it will be interesting to see how good they are. I'll report back when I've used them.