Glued repair of adventure gear

Investigating glued repair of adventure gear and clothing to extend its useful life.

Background

Most of us become attached to our favourite adventure clothing, tents, sleeping bags and quilts. In my case, I use much of the same kit for multiple uses such as bushwalking, backcountry skiing, resort skiing, camping, sailing and fishing. So, it is little wonder that it gets worn and damaged. Even then, some of this downgraded gear can be patched and used for fishing and farm work where mess and more damage will be inevitable. No one will care if they see patches and maybe they will be seen as ‘badges of honour’ and this can save the new replacement items from the more damaging uses.

Sewn patches are often not easy or practical for double-sided items such as puffer jackets, sleeping bags and down-filled slippers. So glued repairs to holes and rips in such gear are handy, particularly for items that need to be waterproof or are filled with insulation fibre or down.

Silnylon, silpoly and cotton and cellulose-based fabrics can be glued and patched with RTV silicone rubber adhesive.

Nylon pantyhose fabric also glues well with this adhesive and its stretch properties make it compatible as a patching fabric when used for silicone glued patches on soft or stretchy adventure fabrics.

However, I have found that polyester, another very popular adventure fabric and other synthetic fabrics, often do not glue well with silicone rubber and the glued bond eventually peels apart. Consequently, this post explores the use of other glues for making a glued repair.

To use Superglue or another glue for a glued repair?

At first, I thought I would try Superglue for my glued repair. I ordered thick and thin versions of the glues that were marketed, online, as ‘Superglues’. The order was placed without due consideration of Superglue’s inflexibility or propensity to overheat when used on fine fabric fibres. I think you will get the drift from the following citations from people more knowledgeable than myself:

Cyanoacrylates are glues (Superglues) have a single component. They rapidly dry up (within 2–50 seconds) and do not contain any solvent. They have a higher thermal resistance. Besides they ensure adhesion even with a little amount of glue, and penetrate into even very small gaps.

National Library of Medicine

Avoid contact with fabric or paper goods. Contact with these materials may cause rapid polymerization which can generate smoke and strong irritating vapors and cause thermal burns.

Museum of Fine Arts-Boston

Does super glue work on clothes? Using super glue on fabric is not a good idea. Super glue tends to polymerize rapidly when added to fibers like cotton, therefore it will quickly generate heat that may burn the fibers.

In addition, super glue cures into a brittle form that is not bendable and flexible like clothing needs to be. As a result, the bond will crack instead of supporting fabric drape and movement.

Fashion Wanderer

My ‘online-superglue’ is not Superglue

When my online glue eventually arrived I did some careful tests with some small samples of fine fabrics. The plastic tubes (toothpaste style) had fine needle nozzles. The plastic screw-on caps had metal spikes that fitted inside the needle and were typical of fittings on some Superglue tubes. That was the end of any similarity of my new glue with Superglue.

For a start, there were very few English words that I could read among the Chinese writing on the tube. I could read ‘Strong Shoe Glue’, ‘Transparance’ and the number ‘1630’. I later found more information in fine print on an outer package that mentioned ‘Resin solvent’ and ‘Uses. Leather, rubber, PVC, TPR, all shoes etc (shown below).’

My suspicions about it not being real Superglue rapidly grew as I smelt a solvent smell (ester or ketone). There was no exothermic heating reaction on fine fabric but rather a very noticeable cooling effect that I could feel while the glue cured.

The cure rate for the glue was conveniently slow and the fabric glue bonds were quite flexible when fully cured. Lastly, I had no nasty sticking of the glue to my fingers as would be expected with Superglue. It had a slow curing rate that was easy to work with. “It had great penetration into woven fabrics and some attributes of rubber/solvent bases contact adhesive. However, it did not have the undesirable toluene solvent as with most contact adhesives nor did it have that attribute of only giving one chance to get the components aligned correctly at first contact. When the glue was fresh, the surfaces could be easily ripped apart, forming those fine stretched streams of glue between the two surfaces and could be ready for a second try .”

Glued repair to adventure gear using an interesting ill-defined glue

The ease of use, flexibility and apparent deep penetration of the glue into fabrics encouraged me to press ahead with testing this ill-defined glue for glued repair. “My purchasing mistake may turn out to be very fortunate.”

[Add a photo of a patch of spinnaker fabric on a DIY down quilt made of the same fabric. Include a pantyhose patch]

Glued repair of DIY winter tent slippers

My DIY ultralight tent slippers have been used and loved so much that the soles were worn out and had been temporarily repaired with Elastoplast blister tape for some years. They are down-filled, made with nylon spinnaker fabric and have an inner sole made of sealed cell foam.

Note: This early ripstop spinnaker fabric (Contender) dates back to an early Australian challenger yacht for the America’s Cup. We were finally becoming competitive and the US defenders forced challenging countries to make their own sails and even their own fabric. I was a small beneficiary of a roll of fabric from this petty treachery. I also see that the arguments still continue and have even come back to bite the rule maker as many other nations have become very competitive.

The slippers also incorporated a sealed cell foam sole that was previously held in place between two layers of the sewn nylon. During the repair, the foam sole would be glued in place and a thick polyester canvas sole cover would also be added for extra durability. I have found that all these materials do not glue well with silicone rubber, so they would make excellent tests of my new glued repair technique.

To effect the repair, I cut away most of the bottom layer of nylon fabric from the bottom of the slippers, leaving a small (~7mm) margin of the original fabric so as to preserve the original stitch line. This allowed the sealed cell foam sole liner to be removed from the nylon pocket in which it was captive.

The backpacking slippers had many years of use around campfires, in hiking tents, mountain huts, hostels, hotels and Japanese Ryokans. As may be expected the remnant fabric to which I was about to glue to was somewhat soiled and frayed and in less than pristine condition. I made no attempt to clean it or remove the traces of residual super down or Elastoplast rubber adhesive. I thought that these residual contaminants would add to the glueing challenge and hopefully just end up encased in the glue.

I started by impregnating the grubby remnant flap of nylon with the glue that largely disappeared into the fabric. The adjacent stitches and residual down were also bathed in the glue. I let the impregnating glue set for about 30 min. Then working along the sipper from one end to the other, I applied generous beads of glue to the foam sole liner to glue it to the remaining intact nylon sole layer of the slippers. As this glueing proceeded, I wrapped the remnant flap of nylon tightly around the edges of the foam sole and glued it in place.

To encourage good bonding, I put the slipper on a plastic breadboard and put a thick foam plastic mat over it and then another board with a big bucket of rocks on top of it. This arrangement, I have found, makes for excellent glue contact pressure on items with varying thicknesses.

To provide a new and more durable sole cover, I cut them out of thick polyester canvas (typically used to make boat storage covers). The sole shape was cut out with an additional margin that was ~7mm wide and this margin was rolled over and glued to form a strong and fray-free edge. The glued edge was allowed to cure under compression as described above.

The canvas sole cover was first glued to the foam sole with multiple lines of glue that ran across the foam sole. Then I generously glued the folded perimeter of the sole cover to the folded and glued remnant nylon flap. The slipper was placed under compression once more while the glue set.

Because this glueing was experimental and I would be depending on the slippers for several days, I supplemented the glueing, around the front of the slippers with stitches of solid thread to prevent catastrophic failure during my ski trip (if the glue should fail). I also carried some spare glue in my repair kit.

Appraisal. “The repairs were so fresh that I tied the slippers to the outside of my pack on the night before my departure to let the ester solvent smell disperse. Well, the repair worked well and they survived the 10-day ski trip and also received several favourable comments. There was no evidence of delamination and I don’t think that the supplementary stitching was needed, but I will leave the stitches there a little longer as a precaution as the glue bonding proves its longevity with extensive usage and the passage of time.

Glued repair of fleece ski gloves

For Australian ski conditions, I use cheap fleece gloves. They provide a good grip on the ski stocks, my hands stay warm, and my body heat easily expels moisture from snow melting into the fleece. They also dry quickly when the skiing is done. However, I have found that the leather in the grip area (possibly fake leather) gets worn out. Consequently, I used my new ill-defined glue to make a very suitable substitute grip area protector for the fleece.

I first removed the tattered remains of the worn part of the original protector. Then I lightly coated the uncovered area with glue and it largely soaked in and I left it to cure. Next, I applied another heavier coating over the area that had been sealed with the priming coat. After allowing it to cure, I applied another coating to areas that appeared to need a little extra cover.

Appraisal. The repair was easy to do and the flexibility of the cured glue coating was good and allowed a stock grip that was as good, if not better than the original leather one. The repaired gloves performed well for 10 days of intensive skiing and showed no significant signs of wear. It is also delightful to know that more glue could be easily added if it did indeed wear out or a thicker cover was needed. Lastly, while applying the new protective layer, I was able to satisfactorily glue down the loose edge of the undamaged portion of the leather layer. The good bonding to the fleece and leather is another success for this glue.

Aldi puffer jacket glued repair

My first Aldi puffy jacket (~50AUD) greatly outperformed my earlier puffer jackets which cost four times as much. Consequently, it was used (and abused) in all my adventure activities and it was a constant companion either on my back or in my backpack to provide comfort and safety in changeable alpine weather conditions. Understandably, it has now been downgraded for fishing and farm use as it now has many little holes from rips and flying sparks and the holes leak out messy down-fill.

Consequently, my old puffy was my next, less urgent, target for experimenting with a glued repair. I think the puffy is made of polyester fabric and from my experience, polyester fabric does not glue well with silicone rubber. Nevertheless, this rather shabby puffy has already had some silicone rubber and pantyhose patches added to it. These silicone glued patches are very ugly but they do stop the down leakage. However, it seems inevitable that they will peel off in time and need replacement. Consequently, I welcomed a possible glueing repair that is more permanent, a little more elegant, and easy to use on a multitude of holes.

Small holes. For all the hole repairs I impregnated or dopped the fabric around the holes with glue and encouraged it to soak in before allowing the glue to cure. After this cure, for the small holes, I simply applied more glue to bridge between the impregnated boundary. This bridging was easy to do in stages for slightly larger holes.

Larger holes. For the larger holes, such as ‘three corner tears’ the flap of fabric could be tacked into the corner with a small bridge of glue and then after curing, the two tear lines could be bridged with more glue.

Even bigger holes. For even bigger holes or ones where the fabric was totally ripped or burnt away, I applied a small piece of pantyhose fabric to make a patch to cover the hole. The porous nature of the pantyhose fabric allows the attachment glue to be applied from the top of the patch. More glue can be applied to the patch to make it down-proof after the initial cure.

Lastly, for the larger holes and the even bigger holes, I used a film of clingwrap to cover the repair and apply compression forces while the glue was cured.

General discussion and conclusion

So far these simple tests bode well for the use of this ill-defined glue for use with adventure gear such as woven nylon fabric, sealed cell foam and polyester canvas.

Although the glue was described as a thick glue, it was easily able to soak into a woven fabric. This probably contributed to excellent bonding. This may mean that it can form a strong bond between nylon, polyester or sealed cell foam polymers without a requirement to adhere to these polymers. Instead, the bond strength may come from the thin glue becoming enmeshed with the openings or pores throughout the fabrics. Then the two networks of glue can be subsequently glued to each other.

It also seems that the glue bonds effectively with fabric that is quite soiled. Both the glue and small quantities of patching fabric such as pantyhose would be easy to carry in a backpacking repair kit for field repairs. When a glue is simply solvent-based, from my experience, it should have an indefinite shelf life in an emergency repair kit, provided the container is adequately sealed to prevent solvent evaporation. This is at odds with information from the product label shown below. This keeping quality is a distinct advantage as alternative glues such as RTV silicone rubber, epoxy resin and ‘real’ superglue. They often slowly spontaneously start to cure in the tube even when the original seal is not broken.

However, the ester solvent in the glue may not be welcome during air travel, but the toluene solvent in many alternative contact glues would not be welcome either (if known about).

The glue has a rather long cure rate that relies on slow solvent evaporation. This means that component alignment manipulation is much easier than when using superglue or contact adhesives for a DIY glued repair.

Lastly, just this snow season gone, I have seen the soles delaminate from several ski boots while out on remote trips. If the glue is suitable for glueing rubber to leather (as the ‘strong shoe glue’ label infers) this would further justify its inclusion in a backpacker repair kit.

Tim

Addendum 1. Simple fabric glue testing

Possibly I should have started with some simple glueing test with cut strips of fabric, rather than rushing in to do actual glued repairs. Anyway, I have started to do some simple test strip glued bonding of Tyvek, nylon ripstop spinnaker fabric, silver-coated breathing polyester tent fabric and mylar spaceblanket. Strips of the fabric were cut with a hot knife with a width of ~27mm and were glued with an overlap that was also ~27mm wide. The small piece of spaceblanket was simply folded in half and the two edges were glued together.

Tyvek. The glue appeared to penetrate into the Tyvek fabric and it formed a strong bond while leaving the bonded area quite flexible. To test peel strength, I could pick one small corner apart a little with my fingernail. This may have been due to inadequate glue distribution. The other corners could not be picked apart this way. This is the first glue that I have found that works well in Tyvek.

Nylon ripstop spinnaker fabric. This fabric bonded well and the bonded area stayed quite flexible. The corners at the overlaps could not easily be peeled apart. This fabric does not glue well with silicone rubber.

Polyester breathing tent fabric with silver coating. I now prefer polyester fabric over silnylon for my tent-making. This preference is based on the minimal wet stretching and low condensation problems with this breathing polyester fabric. However, the polyester had the disadvantage of not glueing well with RTV silicone rubber (as silnylon does).

Consequently, I was delighted to see that the mystery glue bonded well. The glueing test strips shown above were bonded with a silver-coated surface facing an uncoated surface, so both surfaces bond well. Such good bonding should be useful for making waterproof attachments of medium-load fittings, such as stove jacks, to a polyester tent. Such bonding may also be used as a supplement to stitching or even a substitute for stitching for some parts of tent fabrication.

Mylar space blanket. This fabric is one of the lightest insulating materials in a backpacker’s tool kit. It could be made much more robust by having folded and glued hems around the perimeter. Also, it could be used to make custom insulating bags, covers and heat shields if the forming or attachment could be by glueing. However, in my experience has not been easy to glue space blanket material, but this mystery glue appears to bond quite well to space blanket material.

Addendum 2. Spectacle frame repair

On a recent extended camping/fishing trip the frame on some reading spectacles broke where that they had previously been repaired (presumably with a Superglue). This provided me with the opportunity to test my newfound glue on such repairs. I first coated the repair area with the glue and then laminated the zone with three layers of fabric cut from Chux Absorbent Cloth (made from viscose cellulose and bamboo fibres). These layers were soaked with more glue and the repair was wrapped in a compression layer of clingwrap to compress the laminates and leave a dense smooth surface.

The repair although functional looked pretty ugly, so I tinted the laminate with a permanent marker pen to match the frame colour.

MORE ON ADVENTURE GEAR GLUEING

If you are a DIY adventure gear nerd like myself, you may be interested in my other glueing posts. However, before them, I thought a little ode about the fluid meaning of ‘nerdism’ would be fitting.

I tinkered in my shed like a passionate knurd,
Or should I use gnurd, a more gnarly word,
Or nurd, another old and similar pejorative,
Meaning of all, now have morphed into positive narrative,
So with obsession and a touch of pride I embrace the term nerd.

Silnylong glueing

RTV silicone rubber, Oogoo, Sugru, Kintsuglue and Tommy tap comparison

Glueing instead of pinning for sewing backpacking tents

DIY stove jack glue-on and sew-on for hot tents

Contact glue tent repair

Schnozzel bag repair