Silicone grease question

[nwscubamom]

With my new Ikelite housing, I got a teensy little single-use type tube of lube. Ikelite brand. The directions clearly state that you need to use Ikelite brand silicone grease to prevent the O-ring from swelling. I had been using Sea&Sea silicone grease with my old (Sea&Sea) camera.

Top: Sea&Sea silicone - spreads easily, Middle: the stuff that came with the Canon housing, Bottom: Ikelite (pretty thick stuff)


The tear-off Ikelite grease is a pain. There's no way to reseal it once you use it, and although it would look like it's single-use, it's not. There's quite a bit of lube in there. So once it's open, it can now squoosh out and all over everything. Give me a tube with a lid please!

Well, doing an internet search today it would appear that Ikelite ONLY makes the 'single-use' type tubes. Four for about $2.

Anyone know if there's something else that works well, or do you stick to these pain-in-the-toosh little containers?

- Janna

[scottsax]

I'm curious about this myself. I bought a dive tool kit (yes, they saw me coming) and it has a little recloseable tub of silicone grease. I've used what appears to be nearly identical silicone grease on plumbing jobs for years. Does it make a difference? A bunch of little single-use tubes for $2, or a nearly lifetime supply at Lowe's for $5?

[Pez7378]

From an online Photography store:

Ikelite recommends using only Ikelite silicone lube on Ikelite "O" rings to prevent possible softening and swelling in size.
The port "O" ring of Ikelite SLR housings will need a very slight film of lubricant to assure proper installation, but we recommend no lubricant on most Ikelite housing "O" rings. Please note that some lubricants may cause the Ikelite "O" rings to soften and swell in size. A good quality silicone grease should be fine, or use genuine Ikelite lubricant to be sure.
The lubricant may be used to clean the "O" rings, but most of it should then be wiped off. Be careful to not stretch the "O" ring while pulling it between your fingers when cleaning.

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Seems like a bunch of Hooey to me. The only difference I can see between one silicon grease vs. any other is viscosity.

[Aquanautchuck]

Years ago I bought a 2 oz tub of Trident food grade silicone and have used it on all of my o rings including my Sea and Sea camera. Never had a problem.

[ArcticDiver]

I bought a large tube of silicone at the store, I think it was about 3 oz, several years ago. Cost about $10. Been using it ever since for everything. No leaks or problems. I do have some others around the place that were given to me but the one I bought works just as well on just about everything.

[rcontrera]

There really is some validity to the different grease thing. I spent fifteen years working for Ikelite and we had horrendous problems with people using the Nikonos grease on O-rings. Whatever they used to thin their stuff would cause the O-rings to swell terribly! We also had people from the ship construction biz using some stuff they called dielectric silicone and whatever it contained caused problems with the plastics and some of the O-rings ... not to mention it made your eyes water! There is at least one diving company that has their silicone thinned with mineral oils while several use something else that makes it "food grade". The food grade stuff is what you want and the thicker the better. Thinner stuff needs to be reapplied often while the thick stuff will protect for a long time. Remember to only put enough on the rubber to make it shine. If you can see your finger prints, swirls or peaks, you have too much!

[Dusty2]

I have used both the sea and sea stuff and the canon lube without problems

[nwscubamom]

There really is some validity to the different grease thing. I spent fifteen years working for Ikelite and we had horrendous problems with people using the Nikonos grease on O-rings. Whatever they used to thin their stuff would cause the O-rings to swell terribly! We also had people using some stuff from the ship construction biz using some stuff they called dielectric silicone and whatever it contained caused problems with the plastics and some of the O-rings. There is at least one diving company that has their silicone thinned with mineral oils while several use something else that makes it "food grade". The food grade stuff is what you want and the thicker the better. Thinner stuff needs to be reapplied often while the thick stuff will protect for a long time. Remember to only put enough on the rubber to make it shine. If you can see your finger prints, swirls or peaks, you have too much!

Ray, do you know if there have been problems using Sea&Sea grease on Ikelite black O-rings ever? Thanks for chipping in here!

- Janna

[camerone]

Remember to only put enough on the rubber to make it shine. If you can see your finger prints, swirls or peaks, you have too much!

Cheat with those "single serving" packs like I do... use a spare "tiny" zip-loc baggie and put the grease inside it, then insert O-ring, swish a bit, remove ring, and re-seal ziploc. Always the perfect amount.

I would take credit for this, but I think I got it as a tech tip from one of the Airspeed books to make it easier to coat the reg o-rings with Christolube. That stuff is so goopy that it's hard to get it thinned out enough on the really tiny rings. Works for bigger ones (like the rebreather rings) too, just use a bigger baggie.

-C

[rcontrera]

Ray, do you know if there have been problems using Sea&Sea grease on Ikelite black O-rings ever? Thanks for chipping in here!

- Janna

Well, it has been about 8 years since I worked with Ikelite, but we never had any problems with Sea&Sea while I was there.