Many years ago, working for a rally team the head of stores would only issue a single 5ml bottle of each thread lock type to each car crew, Stores said this was because it was expensive stuff and the crews wasted too much! In fairness to the crew, I think we have all squeezed a thread lock bottle trying to clear a small blockage and had way too much blue gold dripping off the threads..oops.
When applying expensive products or simply trying to apply small amounts, low-cost Syringes are a great tool to have on your bench.
Locktite 243 is our general-purpose thread lock when working on mechanical assemblies, this is now around £50 per 50ml bottle so being able to reduce waste and excess overflow is great.
For silicone sealing of PCBs and many other jobs, we mostly use Dowsil 3140, flowable, non-corrosive silicone rubber and this has risen significantly in recent years to around £40 for 90ml or £65 for 300ml.
Both are excellent high-performance products but not cheap so loading small amounts into syringes is an effective way of controlling dispensing rates and thus reducing waste.
We use 10ml syringes types for things like epoxy and silicone, with smaller 5ml types that work great with very thick materials like solder paste. The smaller bore provides a higher pressure for a given application force.
For applying low-viscosity liquids in single drops, like thread lock, an 18 gauge (Green) disposable plastic tip works really well and for thicker items like flowable silicone, we use a 14 gauge (Dark Green) or no tip at all.
Happy dispensing, you’ll be surprised how long you can now make a thread lock bottle last!