I'm currently in the process of building my viv, and my first step was to put an initial silicone layer on the background, so that the great stuff wouldn't peel off and it would look nice from the outside. Well I tried to conserve silicone which was my downfall. Silicone is pretty damn expensive especially if you're using the safe kind (asi).
Anyway I applied a very thin layer of silicone, and it looks awful from the outside (there are patches where the silicone isn't covering the glass). I tried to put on more silicone but by then it had already begun to cure (or whatever you call it). Is there anyway to fix this? Should I wait until it cures and then fill in the patches where you can see glass? Or should I just go with the cleaner route which would be spray-painting / painting the outside black.
Who is going to be viewing the backside of your vivarium? I too like to go thin with my adhesion layer when constructing an artificial background, and there are always patches that aren't completely coated.
It's not just the backside, Im giving the 18x18x24 two "great stuff backgrounds", the backside and the right side of the viv. And while you're still right that no ones going to be intentionally inspecting the background, I'd just like it as neat and orderly as possible. If I want it fixed I'm guessing I'll be having to paint the back glass black?
Nothing sticks to cured silicone. Consider that silicone is used for mold forms where the material being molded is an adhesive itself (like molded epoxy trinkets and such). If there is an advantage to this pre-application of silicone as many believe, it's merely a textural advantage- a slight increase in surface area.
If you're really all that concerned with the Great Stuff peeling off, it may be a better idea to smear Original Gorilla Glue all over it first. You can let it cure first if you like, or just go ahead and carry on with the Great Stuff application. It's essentially the same stuff- they are both polyurethane adhesives- consider Great Stuff to be a low density foamy version of Gorilla Glue. By applying the Gorilla Glue first, you will have created 100% adhesive-to-glass contact, whereas straight up Great Stuff may only be 50/50 because of all the air pockets.
Personally, I didn't bother. I just wiped the glass clean with 99% isopropyl, then left it for a minute or two to fully dry, then I gave the glass a very light mist of water to promote the curing of the Great Stuff.
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