Tacky silicone…

Common issue.

To solve the problem….you need to lightly dust the seams/silicone with baby powder.

It will stick to the seams to give them a little chalky look, but it will remove the tacky/stickiness so that the seams do not stick to each other.

You may have to re-apply to the sections/areas that were torn from the seams sticking together.

If you can, do this outside or put your tent in the bathtub and apply the baby powder, letting the excess fall into the tub to be washed away.

Just limits the dust you get all over the place.

Better to do this outside and then give the tent a good shaking off to remove the excess powder.

-Tony

Just curious.
Can you tell us the exact type of silicone and mineral spirit you used ?

I recently seam-sealed my Gatewood Cape, with amazingly good results.
I mixed Loctite Brand Clear Silicone Waterproof Sealant with Crown Brand Paint Thinner(100% Mineral Spirits) in a 50/50 mix.

It took a little while to get it all mixed, but I did it with a popsicle stick.
It applied very easily with great control when using a small foam paintbrush.

The sealing dried beautifully transparent with no tendency to stick to anything after it cured in 24 hours time.
You can barely even tell that it has been treated. I have to touch it with my fingers to see where the seam sealing is done. You can feel the texture difference of the silicone seam-sealer, but it's almost impossible to see it, and nothing is sticking together in the stuff sack. No translucent "milky" look, no talcum powder, no peeling off, no sticking to everything. It's just a perfect result.

I'm VERY happy with the results of this sealing combination.

I used GE Premium Waterpoof silicone, and Kleen-Strip odorless mineral spirits, mixed in the ratio suggested on TarpTent's website. I'd read about the talcum/baby powder method, but had (naively) though it was a safety measure, not a necessary step in the process.

OK, that it is odd it should have worked.
I have only ever used talcum powder a couple of times, one was about 4 hours after application (I had a couple of tents to send off fast…) the other was about 14 hours or so after sealing and again was for an urgent order.
Apart from that, very rarely my shelters need to stay up for more than 24 hours however that does depend a lot on the humidity level
(the dryer the air the longer it takes…)
BTW, I don't mix it to a pre-set ratio. I start with a blob of silicone, add some mineral spirit, mix, add more spirit and so on till it is as runny as virgin olive oil.
That will vary according to temperature and humidity so often as I am doing the tent I need to add more spirit and mix.
So I think you had two problems, dry air and possibly not high enough dilution.

If you were able to separate the fabric easy enough, I don't think that the stitching is compromised.

Ah, thanks Franco. I think you've hit on my problems. One, it was rather dry when I had the tent up (no recall, but on average our region sees 20-25% humidity daily in late August); and two, the mix may not have been quite thin enough (it was more like sorghum than olive oil, if that helps).

I'm feeling slightly relieved by your saying the stitches may not have been hurt. Everything did pass the usual hose test.

Sometime ago I purchased a Kestrell 2500, now I wish I had bought the 3500 instead so that I could measure the humidity level.
I don't think we get that low here in Melbourne, we do go past 100f but not that dry.
But yes I have noticed that when it is hot and dry it does take a lot longer.
You could always take a look at the stitching with a magnifier or take a photo on macro and enlarge that on your screen, but I really don't think you have a problem there.

My town's humidity, as of this moment? 20%. Melbourne (according to Weather.com)? 68%. :-)

Thanks again.