You’ll never figure it out! Lol I’ve spent hours and hours reviewing datasheets and charts. There are several generations of product, and families of products sold to military, industrial, consumer. Lots of very similar but not quite the same products. Plus, china clone threadlockers sometimes use similar formula names but with different properties. It’s sheer madness!
I have on my bench:
243
648
222MS
294
249 (like plumber’s tape)
248 (like chapstick)
vibratite VC-3
hobbyking 242
hobbyking TL-262
hobbyking TL-609
hobbyking TL-271
and I feel like I’m missing a bunch.
I think maybe a good basic set is 243 medium/blue, 263 strong/red, some kind of green wicking/high-temp, a low and high viscosity retaining compound. 243/263 are newer formulations of 242/262, with more oil resistance and nicer properties all around. 243,263 seem to be the standard blue,red recommended to consumers for almost all uses. The 249 is really nice for the road tool bag–no waiting for it to cure.
And wtf is this?
Another hole I dove into was shelf life. loctite does designate shelf life but I think for the sake of having specs for industrial/gov’t. Seems real shelf life is indefinite.
Yet another hole is how to clean the screw/hole for reapplication. Methods offered were chemical stripping, physical abrasion, burning it off. But the experienced guys mostly just apply fresh loctite, which seems to dissolve the old stuff.
Vibratite VC-3 is cool because it’s supposed to be adjustable and reusable for a few cycles. The permatex gel ones look neat to try.
Most of them, you can use a matching primer to speed the cure.
