Cleaning an RIB?

[Ramjet60s]

I need to clean a Caribe RIB dingy. What are some of the best Cleaning Solutions?

I was recommended a product called M E X.

Anyone got experience in this area?

SV ...waves

[Cheechako]

What .... are you cleaning? Oil? Barnacles? Dirt? Trying to make it not look faded?

[a64pilot]

I changed your title from RBI to RIB, hope you don't mind, and I think you mean maybe MEK not MEX?
If so be real careful with MEK, do not breathe it, don't get it near your eyes and don't even get in on your skin.
Myself I have had good luck cleaning Hypalon with a worn out dish scrubbing green pad and simple green, there are products special made for this, the one or two I have tried were not very effective.
On edit I assume MEK will eat up PVC, but I have not tried it

[Cheechako]

I would not let MEK anywhere near an inflatable. I don't have any specific experience with doing that, but MEK is about the best solvent out there. I always have some around. But I would definitely worry about it effecting the glues etc.

[brianlara 3]

Acetone cleans my zodiac pvc rib perfectly.
MEK eats pvc. Dont know about hypalon.
Anyway, mek is for preparing surfaces prior to bonding after masking well. Other than that it shold be kept in a safe. Not good stuff! A known carcinogen too afaik.

[Cheechako]

Yeah, MEK get's a bad rap I think. I worked as a Safety and Enviro guy in industry for a while. We were required by procedures to use MEK for certain adhesive prep and finishing. So I spent a lot of time investigating. I actually read the testing for MEK for the State of California. They inject progressively larger amounts of it directly into rats until they die. (poor animals) Even then, it took a long time and huge exposure to create cancer in a very minimal amount of rats. It's almost laughable. "You filled the rats with poison and a few of them got cancer? Imagine that!"
If I use it at home, I may saturate a rag and clean my hands with it.

[Ramjet60s]

RIB... (correction) thanks.

Type of cleaning needed: This is to correct fading, stains, and dark stains on side rub tails.

MEK... (correction) thanks.

...waves

[Pete7]

You need something called traffic film remover (TFR), diluted for normal cleaning, neat on marks etc. Buy from motor factors about £12 for 5 litres this side of the pond. TFR is used by truckers to clean, well trucks oh and me to clean the yacht.

MEK is too strong for regular cleaning on hyperlon, use as a very last resort.

Pete

[AfterHoursNLCT]

If you can get them, those "Mr.Clean" Magic Erasers did a nice job on my old Achilles. You do use a few of them though. They seem to break up quickly... LL

[a64pilot]

So, assuming Hyperlon, after cleaning what is the best protectant? Other than chaps

[sailjumanji]

If stains are old, it likely will not come completely clean. That said, I use Simple Green and a fairly stiff brush. I protect with 303 Protectant after. Spray it on, wipe off excess. My hypalon dinghy is ten years old, and still looks new. But I also keep it covered when hanging from davits in between trips.

[AmyA511]

Left side of photo is after cleaning. Right. Side is before. Simply used bleach, a hose, and a sponge.

[ranger58sb]

MEK was recommended by our hypalon RIB vendor ONLY for prepping areas that were about to have adhesives applied. (As for nav light fittings, etc.) No mention of using it as a general purpose cleaner.

-Chris

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by AmyA511

Attachment 140948

Left side of photo is after cleaning. Right. Side is before. Simply used bleach, a hose, and a sponge.

You would have done better if you added some soap or detergent to the mix. Bleach doesn't really clean. It bleaches (obviously) and sanitizes.
When you wash your tighty whiteys, you don't just put bleach in the machine, you use detergent also, right?

Of course you can buy cleaning products that contain both.

The hard bottom can stand some abuse but when cleaning the tubes, I would be careful to use products that won't harm the PVC or Hypalon. The easiest way to do this is to use cleaners specifically made for cleaning inflatables.

[AfterHoursNLCT]

When I mentioned Magic Eraser, I was referring to cleaning the topsides of a RIB to get the bright color back. For the bottom, I used soap, water, and a brush....