Silicone hoses

[grumpytvr]

Evening all

Hopefully on the final furlong of my S2 rebuild as I'm now putting stuff back together in the engine bay.

I have a silicone hose kit that I'm just about to fit. I've tried cutting a spare bit of hose with a sharp knife to see how easy it is and it looks like I've done it with a pair of false teeth! It's not so much the silicone (although getting a nice uniform straight line is difficult) as the cotton / polyester (whatever it is) strengthening ply, it's all freyed and looks a right mess. Has anyone got any tips for getting a good clean cut on this stuff?

Any assistance much appreciated......

[phillpot]

Should cut fine with a really sharp knife.

Either a new blade if using a "Stanley" knife (used one today to slightly shorten the new silicone top and bottom hoses for my Taimar, and at over £40 each I didn't want to mess up) or one of those disposable snap-off blade type should do fine.

[v8s4me]

Also use a jubilee clip as a guide for the blade to get a straight edge.

[Alan Whitaker]

Hi
Pop it in the vice between ally and cut it off.

Alan

[GreenV8S]

I tried the 'jubilee clip as a guide' technique but I found the body of the clip made it very hard to get a clean cut.

What you really want is a knife with an extremely sharp long blade. If it's sharp enough it will cut the silicone in a single pass with very light pressure. I find the disposable knives with segmented snap-off blades work really well since you can fully extend the blade and get 3-4 inches of razer sharp blade. The blade sharpness is crucial though. If you have to saw at it, you'll never get a clean cut.

[grumpytvr]

Thanks for replies.

I will retrieve my VERY sharp stanley knife from it's resting place, find some spare jubilee clips and some spare pieces of pipe to act as formers and try again.

Thanks again

[phillpot]

grumpytvr said:

Thanks for replies.

find some spare jubilee clips and some spare pieces of pipe to act as formers and try again.

i wouldn't bother with jubilee clips and all that stuff myself, just wrap a piece of masking tape or similar round as a guide, stab the hose with your sharp knife and slice it round in one smooth even stoke....no problem !

PS its easier to cut a decent slice off (10mm plus) rather than trying to trim two or three mm's in my experience

Did anyone mention knife must be very sharp