[TowerTalk] GE HV silicone spray ?

[Jim Thomson]

I bought  a spray bomb of this stuff back in the  late 70s.   It dries clear + hard.
The HV standoff on it was phenomenal.  A local buddy had a shunt
fed tower for 160m, and the air variable cap inside would arc with just 100w. 
After spraying the GE stuff on...and let dry for a day or two... zero problems
with arcing.   I brought my small amp, that had 160m on it....and we stuffed
1.1 kw through it...and still no arcing. 

Another fellow had a yaseu FL-2100B amp... abt 650 w out....and they used a
small broadcast style cap for the load cap. Barely .025 inch spacing.  The cap
arced on 15m..so the owner tried to clean out the carbon, and ended up bending the
plates..and made a mess of it.  They touched at one point in their rotation.   I sprayed
the GE in there.... and zero problems after that.... and the stator /rotor plates still
rubbed.   They were  touching right where the load cap was tweaked for max po. 

For an experiment, I scrubbed all the gunk off my new (at the time in 1980)
6061-T6  tubing with steel wool /jets pads etc.  This was for a hb 5 –el 10m yagi.
Once super clean, dry and shiny... I doused the eles  with the GE spray bomb. 
Those eles stayed shiny  up until just a few years ago. 

It was amazing stuff.... and have tried to track it down over the years with very little
success.   It’s a cheap and easy way to HV insulate anything..and also useful for
connectors, and a myriad of other uses.   Does this stuff still exist?  I think it may
exist under a different designation or heading. 

Jim   VE7RF