Thread: Inflatable boat glue

Hi all,

I have an inflatable that used to hold air, but has been rolled up (probably the problem) in the shed for a while and has come apart at a few seams.
What's the best glue for these and do you think it's worth the effort or will it just come apart somewhere else?

Cheers

Bostik 555

bostic simson. but prep is everything

Incept in Taihape have the "proper" stuff. 2C.

Bostik 777 or 999 is what you need for inflatable boats.

If the seams are ungluing like that, i think you will be chasing your tail attempting repairs. From experience, having a rubber duck delaminate can sometimes be hazardous to your health, especially if a couple of Km offshore😐

Cheers all, looks like 777 plus the crosslinker is the go.
If it works, all good. If not I'm $70 in the hole and no worse off.

It wont be going offshore, at worst it'll be floating down the lazy stretches of some local rivers

The 777 with crosslinker is the way to go, as others have said cleanliness is the thing. While you are at it, inspect all the seams and see what they look like. Any delamination and grab and pull, if the original glue formulation has softened a lot of the seams could be about to go as well.

You need to get all traces of crap and old glue off, which involves quite harsh solvents typically to get the old glue off. Then final clean/prep - green scitchbrite was a revelation for me here! It's not easy with some of the seams to get everything aligned, clean reasonably heavy plastic sheet can help positioning and just slide the pieces out when you have the seam in the right place and roll over the seam with a roller to push everything together before moving to the next bit...

@makka - how did you get on with this?
I've just seen your post now, as @Ryan_Songhurst mentioned, Bostik 777 or 999 plus activator do the job well for these sort of inflatables.

I use 777 for in-field repair (usually river side for my inflatable raft) as it doesn't require heat (i.e, heat gun) but I much prefer 999 for workshop repair. The benefit of 999 is that you let it 'dry' off completely, then activate the glue with heat. This process of activation makes it much more workable for larger repairs, in my opinion. It will save you a world of cussing, not having the parts stick together as you try to orient them correctly. With 999 you glue up the parts (after cleaning, cleaning, cleaning- I used MEK on all surfaces prior to glueing), then once the surfaces are no longer tack,y you can get everything into the correct position. Once ready you apply heat and, fingers crossed- you're done!

You may find that you start chasing repairs around the boat, it can be unfortunate that once the seams start to degrade, they all start go.. so the job can get bigger quickly.

Would love to hear how you got on...

I ended up chucking it in the bin, started chasing the seams and found, like you said, that I would end up doing the whole boat!
I peeled off all of the brackets and rowlocks etc. to give to a mate who has rafts incase he wants to add anything to his.

Originally Posted by makka

I ended up chucking it in the bin, started chasing the seams and found, like you said, that I would end up doing the whole boat!
I peeled off all of the brackets and rowlocks etc. to give to a mate who has rafts incase he wants to add anything to his.

Wise man.

My mate and I owned a slightly larger inflatable in our teens. Was always needing a bit of glue here and a bit of glue there. One weekend we circumnavigated Kauwau Island, going way out to sea and having fun.

Next day on the beach at Goat island gave it a wee bit of a pump to harden it up and poooF!!!!! went a couple of seams and it all went flacid real fast.

Got us thinking what would have happened if it had rapidly disassembled itself the day before...... Talking the 1970's, so no radios/gps/plb/cellphones