Uber Goop WHITE Dishwasher Rack Repair w/80 caps Review.
"Works better than expected - but lots of prep!" 2008-04-07
By T. A. Delzer (Eugene, OR)
I hadn't anticipated the amount of prep that would be required to make a good, long-lasting bond with the vinyl liquid and cap when I purchased this product. BUT! The caps have stayed on absolutely perfectly in about a month and a half of almost daily running of my dishwasher.
PROS:
1) Does what it's supposed to do: they fit on the tines snugly, stay on, prevent rust transfer to dishes, seem to keep rack tines from rusting further . For these reasons alone the kit would get 5 stars easily as far as I'm concerned.
2)the caps also cushion our dishes better than anything I've seen on any factory-provided rack tines. Dishes don't get beaten up by tines but it's nice to get the sense that our dishes are getting gentle treatment after a couple years of scraping and rust stains from the worn tine tips...
CONS:
1) The liquid vinyl dries too quickly. Be sure to get the stuff into the cap and the cap onto the tine within 15 seconds or so or the liquid vinyl will develop a skin and start to clump when you push the cap onto the tine. Not sure how it might affect adhesion but it certainly looks pretty crummy.
2) The liquid vinyl runs out of the cap too easily when you push the cap onto the tine because the cap interior is pretty much the exact volume as the tine itself - there's no room for the liquid vinyl.
We all want the tine to look like it's part of the original rack, no? Well, the drip of liquid vinyl down the side of every tine precludes that possibility. It's not really that noticeable, I'll admit, but still it'd be nice to have a remote possibility of getting a cap on that is perfectly clean.
3) You need more of the liquid vinyl to put all 80 caps on. I put on about 60 caps and used every last drop of the liquid vinyl I could get out of the bottle. AND I didn't use as much of the l.v. as the directions advised per cap. (A lot of the l.v. dried to the side of the bottle - think of the liquid paper correction fluid bottles.)
WISHES:
1) I wish the bottle of l.v. had been made with a rubber cap with a single hole in its center so that the l.v. wasn't exposed to air during its use (and would stay wet). You'd shake up the liquid, turn the bottle over, and slide the bottle onto a tine through the hole in the rubber cap. Then pull the bottle off the tine and the rubber cap pulls off excess l.v. but enough stays on for the cap to adhere well. And it deposits the correct amount onto the tine to avoid the drip down the side every time.
2) I wish the caps had a hole in the top to allow air to escape as the cap was slid onto the tine. When the l.v. starts to come out the hole you quit pushing the cap down. Perfect mount of l.v. evenly deposited throughout the inside the cap and no drips.
PREP I DID:
This is the critical part of putting these caps on, IMO. You want all the rust off the tines and the tines as clean as possible without using water (puts the rust right back on the exposed metal) before you apply the l.v. and cap.
1) Shave off the vinyl on the rusted tines down to the intact steel (maybe up to 1/8" of un-rusted steel is all you'll want to expose).
I used an Olfa Comfort Grip utility/craft knife to do this. You'll need a sharp blade to get the vinyl off. And you'll need a blade you can either sharpen or replace cheaply because the rusted tine will dull and chip your blade. The Olfa is my favorite knife because it's extremely sharp, very comfortable, and the blades snap off every 3/8" inch or so to give you a new tip.
And the density of the tines will probably make it impossible for you to get at the tines, rust, or vinyl, with anything larger than a knife.
2) Remove the rust on the tines.
I had planned to use a grinder with a sanding pad attached but that couldn't be done because of the closeness of the tines to one another. Trying to get the rust off a cylindrical tine with a flat disk without bumping vinyl I wanter to keep on in other nearby locations is a headache if not impossible.
I then tried a wire bristle attachment on my drill - same problem of damaging nearby vinyl I wanted to keep, and it wasn't very quick in getting the rust off the tine either.
I even considered just grinding all the tines down to the intact steel but I still had to shave off the vinyl beforehand (vinyl stinks and is toxic when it melts as it will with a grinder) and I didn't want to potentially make the tines so short that they wouldn't hold up larger plates (unlikely but I didn't want to bother with that risk).
So, after wasting too much time wondering how I could make the job go faster and wishing somebody had made a hollow drill bit that could grind tines I just gave up and did it the old fashioned way: small pieces of sandpaper and lots of elbow grease. A real pain but it did the job most accurately (with the least collateral damage if you will) and most effectively.
I suppose you could consider using the Rust-Oleum spray paint that binds with rust to stop further rusting but I was a little wary of the potential for the paint to not provide a good gripping surface for the l.v. or to flake off the tine itself.
3) Clean the dust off the tines.
I just vacuumed with a shop-vac and then wiped clean with a dry, clean rag (old t-shirt).
I've read that 100% isopropyl alcohol will not leave any residue and doesn't cause rust on steel like water will so that could be used in addition to wiping and vacuuming.
If I recall correctly all the prepping I did took me about 3 hours. Maybe more. A LOT of work for the job. Certainly MUCH more than I had expected to have to do to get the job done in a manner I figured would last the longest.
In sum, the product reviewed works as advertised and seems top-notch so far. But just don't expect a quick and easy fix if you're the "do it once and forget about it" type like I am.
FOLLOW UP after 10 months of daily use:
The caps are PERFECT! Man, I couldn't be more pleased with replacement tips. No crumbling, no cracking, no crazing, no hardening, no coming off. Nothing. Look like I put them on yesterday. No joke.
Despite the fear of screwing something new up I think I'll probably even put these tips on the unused tines of the new racks we'll get when we have to replace our current washer. And, hey!, NO PREP!
"Scott S." 2008-04-27
By Scott Stumpf
Good product. Worked as advertised. Minor difficulty in getting the glue to "drip" into the caps before you stick them to the rack posts. The easiest way we found was to squeeze the cap closed around the middle, place the glue at the opening, and then release the cap slowly to draw the glue into the cap.
"GREAT PRODUCT, EASY TO USE" 2008-05-31
By Journeynut (chesapeake, va USA)
I ordered this because my dishrack had some end prongs that were rusting.
What appealed to me was the caps that came with the product to put on the end prongs of the dishrack. These really solve the problem and cushion the dishes.
The application of the caps is easy. If you find the glue is drying too fast, put the brush back in the bottle, roll it between your hands a few seconds (like you would nail polish) and keep going.
I also sometimes applied the glue to the end prongs themselves and inside the rubber CAP (both) while I was applying the caps.
All caps have stayed put, my dishrack looks brand new and no more rust!
Great product. Easy application. And it is a bargain.
"Works great but...." 2008-02-29
By tmagent (San Diego)
This stuff works great but make sure you count how many pins you're going to need. I under-estimated and had to place another order which arrived promptly. This stuff works much better than I expected and it's very easy to apply. A little advice though....after you've done a few pins or touch-ups, wipe off the brush stem with a Kleenex or something to keep it from getting gunked up. I highly recommend this product.
"Dishwasher rack repair kit really works!" 2007-09-14
By CT Reader
The tips on my dishwasher rack began to rust after the dishwasher was only a few months old, and the rust was getting all over my dishes. The repair kit arrived quickly,was easy to use, worked great and my problem is solved. Much, much cheaper than replacing the rack. Great product!
By T. A. Delzer (Eugene, OR)
I hadn't anticipated the amount of prep that would be required to make a good, long-lasting bond with the vinyl liquid and cap when I purchased this product. BUT! The caps have stayed on absolutely perfectly in about a month and a half of almost daily running of my dishwasher.
PROS:
1) Does what it's supposed to do: they fit on the tines snugly, stay on, prevent rust transfer to dishes, seem to keep rack tines from rusting further . For these reasons alone the kit would get 5 stars easily as far as I'm concerned.
2)the caps also cushion our dishes better than anything I've seen on any factory-provided rack tines. Dishes don't get beaten up by tines but it's nice to get the sense that our dishes are getting gentle treatment after a couple years of scraping and rust stains from the worn tine tips...
CONS:
1) The liquid vinyl dries too quickly. Be sure to get the stuff into the cap and the cap onto the tine within 15 seconds or so or the liquid vinyl will develop a skin and start to clump when you push the cap onto the tine. Not sure how it might affect adhesion but it certainly looks pretty crummy.
2) The liquid vinyl runs out of the cap too easily when you push the cap onto the tine because the cap interior is pretty much the exact volume as the tine itself - there's no room for the liquid vinyl.
We all want the tine to look like it's part of the original rack, no? Well, the drip of liquid vinyl down the side of every tine precludes that possibility. It's not really that noticeable, I'll admit, but still it'd be nice to have a remote possibility of getting a cap on that is perfectly clean.
3) You need more of the liquid vinyl to put all 80 caps on. I put on about 60 caps and used every last drop of the liquid vinyl I could get out of the bottle. AND I didn't use as much of the l.v. as the directions advised per cap. (A lot of the l.v. dried to the side of the bottle - think of the liquid paper correction fluid bottles.)
WISHES:
1) I wish the bottle of l.v. had been made with a rubber cap with a single hole in its center so that the l.v. wasn't exposed to air during its use (and would stay wet). You'd shake up the liquid, turn the bottle over, and slide the bottle onto a tine through the hole in the rubber cap. Then pull the bottle off the tine and the rubber cap pulls off excess l.v. but enough stays on for the cap to adhere well. And it deposits the correct amount onto the tine to avoid the drip down the side every time.
2) I wish the caps had a hole in the top to allow air to escape as the cap was slid onto the tine. When the l.v. starts to come out the hole you quit pushing the cap down. Perfect mount of l.v. evenly deposited throughout the inside the cap and no drips.
PREP I DID:
This is the critical part of putting these caps on, IMO. You want all the rust off the tines and the tines as clean as possible without using water (puts the rust right back on the exposed metal) before you apply the l.v. and cap.
1) Shave off the vinyl on the rusted tines down to the intact steel (maybe up to 1/8" of un-rusted steel is all you'll want to expose).
I used an Olfa Comfort Grip utility/craft knife to do this. You'll need a sharp blade to get the vinyl off. And you'll need a blade you can either sharpen or replace cheaply because the rusted tine will dull and chip your blade. The Olfa is my favorite knife because it's extremely sharp, very comfortable, and the blades snap off every 3/8" inch or so to give you a new tip.
And the density of the tines will probably make it impossible for you to get at the tines, rust, or vinyl, with anything larger than a knife.
2) Remove the rust on the tines.
I had planned to use a grinder with a sanding pad attached but that couldn't be done because of the closeness of the tines to one another. Trying to get the rust off a cylindrical tine with a flat disk without bumping vinyl I wanter to keep on in other nearby locations is a headache if not impossible.
I then tried a wire bristle attachment on my drill - same problem of damaging nearby vinyl I wanted to keep, and it wasn't very quick in getting the rust off the tine either.
I even considered just grinding all the tines down to the intact steel but I still had to shave off the vinyl beforehand (vinyl stinks and is toxic when it melts as it will with a grinder) and I didn't want to potentially make the tines so short that they wouldn't hold up larger plates (unlikely but I didn't want to bother with that risk).
So, after wasting too much time wondering how I could make the job go faster and wishing somebody had made a hollow drill bit that could grind tines I just gave up and did it the old fashioned way: small pieces of sandpaper and lots of elbow grease. A real pain but it did the job most accurately (with the least collateral damage if you will) and most effectively.
I suppose you could consider using the Rust-Oleum spray paint that binds with rust to stop further rusting but I was a little wary of the potential for the paint to not provide a good gripping surface for the l.v. or to flake off the tine itself.
3) Clean the dust off the tines.
I just vacuumed with a shop-vac and then wiped clean with a dry, clean rag (old t-shirt).
I've read that 100% isopropyl alcohol will not leave any residue and doesn't cause rust on steel like water will so that could be used in addition to wiping and vacuuming.
If I recall correctly all the prepping I did took me about 3 hours. Maybe more. A LOT of work for the job. Certainly MUCH more than I had expected to have to do to get the job done in a manner I figured would last the longest.
In sum, the product reviewed works as advertised and seems top-notch so far. But just don't expect a quick and easy fix if you're the "do it once and forget about it" type like I am.
FOLLOW UP after 10 months of daily use:
The caps are PERFECT! Man, I couldn't be more pleased with replacement tips. No crumbling, no cracking, no crazing, no hardening, no coming off. Nothing. Look like I put them on yesterday. No joke.
Despite the fear of screwing something new up I think I'll probably even put these tips on the unused tines of the new racks we'll get when we have to replace our current washer. And, hey!, NO PREP!
By Scott Stumpf
Good product. Worked as advertised. Minor difficulty in getting the glue to "drip" into the caps before you stick them to the rack posts. The easiest way we found was to squeeze the cap closed around the middle, place the glue at the opening, and then release the cap slowly to draw the glue into the cap.
By Journeynut (chesapeake, va USA)
I ordered this because my dishrack had some end prongs that were rusting.
What appealed to me was the caps that came with the product to put on the end prongs of the dishrack. These really solve the problem and cushion the dishes.
The application of the caps is easy. If you find the glue is drying too fast, put the brush back in the bottle, roll it between your hands a few seconds (like you would nail polish) and keep going.
I also sometimes applied the glue to the end prongs themselves and inside the rubber CAP (both) while I was applying the caps.
All caps have stayed put, my dishrack looks brand new and no more rust!
Great product. Easy application. And it is a bargain.
By tmagent (San Diego)
This stuff works great but make sure you count how many pins you're going to need. I under-estimated and had to place another order which arrived promptly. This stuff works much better than I expected and it's very easy to apply. A little advice though....after you've done a few pins or touch-ups, wipe off the brush stem with a Kleenex or something to keep it from getting gunked up. I highly recommend this product.
By CT Reader
The tips on my dishwasher rack began to rust after the dishwasher was only a few months old, and the rust was getting all over my dishes. The repair kit arrived quickly,was easy to use, worked great and my problem is solved. Much, much cheaper than replacing the rack. Great product!
