I decided to take @bcox mod to the extreme so I shaved down the internal clip nubs with a Dremel, cut off the tiny claw tip, and bored out the end clip with a 7/32 bit to give my rubber a nice, cavernous space to slide in and out unhindered. My liquidator now works like a dream come true. No streaks, no nutty pressure required.
I believe this may jive with @hbm theory that climate plays a role in the functionality of this tool. Since I got the tool my struggle seemed to get progressively worse with the end of my cool weather. I believe the increased heat and humidity were causing enough of a difference in the plastic, aluminum and rubber to render the tool unusable due to bunching unless pinning the rubber in place.
With enough material removed, the clip now functions exactly as any other dog-eared channel by allowing the rubber free passage to reset itself after compression.
Gosh I feel so validated. This is a really special day.
Following. I bought my exelerator and 2.0 about 2 months ago. I got fed up with it early on and threw it in my āspareā box. I recently decided to give it another try and I now am better at it. However I am now trying to figure out why the rubber is folding over itself on the smallest of fanning motion. Is it because of the āend clipā design?
Make sure you let the bit play around a good while inside the clip while drilling. Initially the results were improved somewhat, but after an extended second drilling with the same bit I saw even better results.
Indirectly, I suppose so. When that happened to me it was because 1.) I needed more slippery water on the glass and 2.) Because I was turning too fast. This liquidator likes shallow turns. If you are going to rotate by more than 20 degrees or so then you need to slow down the rotation
This mod pretty much makes the Liquidator 2.0 the same as my modified Wagtail channel (my gold standard), only difference being the tips wont scratch the glass or frame work. With my mod. Wagtail, the only thing holding the rubber in the channel is a screw in the middle of said channel, and it performs flawlessly, not picky about angle or rubber type/brand, can even use it with a very ādryā solution as well.
I think I just need to cut & hammer out some more Wagtail channels and call it quits with the whole Liquidator craze. At this rate, it would be entirely easier (and cheaper) for me to mod the FLIQ clips to some modified Wagtail channels, really the only thing (IMO) that was done right with the Excelerator.
I havenāt drilled out my clips yet (I look forward to doing so), itās on the to-do list sometime before Thursday and after some sleepā¦ so tired.
With any luck, Iāll get my 18" Liquidator channel working reliably! HEYOOO!
Update: I performed this mod on each size liquidator I own. All of them now work well except for the 18". Even with the clips bored out, it still leaves streaks at one edge or the other unless I push harder than is comfortable.
As far as the swivel action, it seems the excelerator is a bit more of a scalpel than the Wag. Itās very precise. But I donāt pole tiny residential windows, only high storefront panes so my priority is to have something that can close out a deep overhead frame consistently and quickly. Wag does it for me in that case. I use a Pivot Control handle.
Sometimes it would be nice to have an adjustable angle like the Excelerator, but the Wagtail angle adapter does a decent job at any rate.
