crappy rubber cement?

Had a flat this morning (of course.. it's wet. not really a morning
to ride in in Sydney), and one backup tube had an existing leaky
patch.

Anyway..

I had to crack open a new tube of rubber cement to patch the tube, and
its taken me three goes to get the two patches to adhere properly (not
leak). I've never had this problem before.. usually get them fixed
first go.

I suspect my latest tube of el-cheapo rubber cement that came in a no-
name patch kit. It certainly doesn't smell as toxic as the stuff
usually does.

Anyone else had this problem before? Am I just imagining things?

(looking forward to the ride home in 30kn winds and driving rain.. not)

Duncan wrote:
Had a flat this morning (of course.. it's wet. not really a morning
to ride in in Sydney), and one backup tube had an existing leaky
patch.

Anyway..

I had to crack open a new tube of rubber cement to patch the tube, and
its taken me three goes to get the two patches to adhere properly (not
leak). I've never had this problem before.. usually get them fixed
first go.

I suspect my latest tube of el-cheapo rubber cement that came in a no-
name patch kit. It certainly doesn't smell as toxic as the stuff
usually does.

Anyone else had this problem before? Am I just imagining things?

Well, I don't know if this is relevant to you or not but tubes can
be made of different compounds. I've found that "shinier" tubes are
not as easy to fix for the reasons you give - the cement doesn't seem
to stick. Do you roughen the tube before gluing?

I seem to recall that tubes used to have a lot more rubber in them
and you could fix them with a vulcanising kit. I remember having one
as a kid where you clamped the tube to a little disk that had some
flammable material in it. You then set the thing a light (very easy
to do in wet and windy conditions) and it would transfer a patch onto
the tube. Don't think this can be done now.


(looking forward to the ride home in 30kn winds and driving rain.. not)


Come on, it's character building!

Enjoy,
DeF.


--
e-mail: [email protected] finger.murdoch.edu.au
To reply, you'll have to remove your finger.

On Jun 8, 5:12 pm, DeF ""d.farrow\"@your finger.murdoch.edu.au"
wrote:
Duncan wrote:
Had a flat this morning (of course.. it's wet. not really a morning
to ride in in Sydney), and one backup tube had an existing leaky
patch.

Anyway..

I had to crack open a new tube of rubber cement to patch the tube, and
its taken me three goes to get the two patches to adhere properly (not
leak). I've never had this problem before.. usually get them fixed
first go.

I suspect my latest tube of el-cheapo rubber cement that came in a no-
name patch kit. It certainly doesn't smell as toxic as the stuff
usually does.

Anyone else had this problem before? Am I just imagining things?

Well, I don't know if this is relevant to you or not but tubes can
be made of different compounds. I've found that "shinier" tubes are
not as easy to fix for the reasons you give - the cement doesn't seem
to stick. Do you roughen the tube before gluing?

yep.. lots of roughin up

I seem to recall that tubes used to have a lot more rubber in them
and you could fix them with a vulcanising kit. I remember having one
as a kid where you clamped the tube to a little disk that had some
flammable material in it. You then set the thing a light (very easy
to do in wet and windy conditions) and it would transfer a patch onto
the tube. Don't think this can be done now.

I often wondered what happened to those kits.. they certainly were
alot more effective for those quick on-the-road patch jobs (which I
try to avoid by carrying a couple of spare tubes).

At least I'm heading ENE tonight.. so should mostly be a tail wind
(unlike this morning).

On Jun 8, 3:04 pm, Duncan wrote:
Had a flat this morning (of course.. it's wet. not really a morning
to ride in in Sydney), and one backup tube had an existing leaky
patch.

The vast majority of punctures I've had have been in the wet. I often
wonder if it's because I can't see little bits of potentially
puncturing debris as easily or the rain is washing/floating bits of
debris around more freely.

Then again, maybe it's something to do with the fact that I ride
through the really deep puddles for fun. There could be anything
hiding in there!

Graeme

Duncan wrote:

I often wondered what happened to those kits.. they certainly
were alot more effective for those quick on-the-road patch
jobs (which I try to avoid by carrying a couple of spare
tubes).

Vulcanising patches have gone the way of the dinosaurs. They
don't work on modern butyl rubber compounds.

John

On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:46:19 +1000, John Henderson wrote:

Vulcanising patches have gone the way of the dinosaurs. They
don't work on modern butyl rubber compounds.

I remember my Dad using them when I was a kid. I thought they
were banned for safety reasons.

--
Home page: http://members.westnet.com.au/mvw

Graeme Dods wrote:
On Jun 8, 3:04 pm, Duncan wrote:
Had a flat this morning (of course.. it's wet. not really a morning
to ride in in Sydney), and one backup tube had an existing leaky
patch.

The vast majority of punctures I've had have been in the wet. I often
wonder if it's because I can't see little bits of potentially
puncturing debris as easily or the rain is washing/floating bits of
debris around more freely.

Then again, maybe it's something to do with the fact that I ride
through the really deep puddles for fun. There could be anything
hiding in there!

Graeme


We had a thread on this recently and a number of theories were
suggested.

In the end, the consensus was that punctures in the wet were more
likely as water lubricates the glass/metal slicing into the tire.

DeF

--
e-mail: [email protected] finger.murdoch.edu.au
To reply, you'll have to remove your finger.

On Jun 8, 5:04 pm, Duncan wrote:
Had a flat this morning (of course.. it's wet. not really a morning
to ride in in Sydney), and one backup tube had an existing leaky
patch.

Anyway..

I had to crack open a new tube of rubber cement to patch the tube, and
its taken me three goes to get the two patches to adhere properly (not
leak). I've never had this problem before.. usually get them fixed
first go.

I suspect my latest tube of el-cheapo rubber cement that came in a no-
name patch kit. It certainly doesn't smell as toxic as the stuff
usually does.

Anyone else had this problem before? Am I just imagining things?

yes, I had the problem a few years ago. Now I carry 'weldtite'
glueless patches.

Michael Warner wrote:

I remember my Dad using them when I was a kid. I thought they
were banned for safety reasons.

That could be another reason. I'm old enough to have used them
regularly, and found they didn't work any more sometime in the
70's. The butyl rubber explanation was given at the time.

John

On Jun 8, 6:11 pm, Bleve wrote:
On Jun 8, 5:04 pm, Duncan wrote:



Had a flat this morning (of course.. it's wet. not really a morning
to ride in in Sydney), and one backup tube had an existing leaky
patch.

Anyway..

I had to crack open a new tube of rubber cement to patch the tube, and
its taken me three goes to get the two patches to adhere properly (not
leak). I've never had this problem before.. usually get them fixed
first go.

I suspect my latest tube of el-cheapo rubber cement that came in a no-
name patch kit. It certainly doesn't smell as toxic as the stuff
usually does.

Anyone else had this problem before? Am I just imagining things?

yes, I had the problem a few years ago. Now I carry 'weldtite'
glueless patches.

hmmm. looked them up, but I can't tell: are they the ones with the
pink closed-cell foam-type backing?

I found those worked pretty well, but always deteriorated over time,
so the tube had to be re-patched with rubber eventually.