Glue for Latex and PVC

[jones_net]

Hi

I have a 6-10 years old Mobby´s Twin Shell drysuit. The inner shell is made by C.A.P as far as I can find out. The P is for PVC.
My local diveshop have tried to chance the latex seals, but they are unable to get the glue to hold for more than 1 dive:-(

Does anyone in here know, what kind of glue I need to use to attach the latex to the PVC?

/J

 

[diveanytime]

From my Seal repair instructions from Mobby's (vintage 1999) it says to use the 6250 Latex rubber glue. It even says you can strip all of the latex rubber seal off the nylon suit itself and just be sure to roughen the area (PVC'ed) and wipe it clean with a little soap and water and let it dry before applying the glue. I have the doc file with black & white photos if anyone wants it


I also found this old article that I cut & pasted into a saved text file from long time ago.

use PB-300 glue (http://www.ossystems.com/repair/repr.htm).
I do a lot of repairs on both Mobby's and Andy's suits. They are both pretty easy to work on. If you don't have a source for glue, Ace Hardware has a Contact cement/adhesive. It is yellow in color. A Quart usually runs about $14.00. A Gallon $22.00. The main thing is to thoroughly clean both surfaces before you glue. Use MEK for best results.

 

[diveanytime]

Use MEK if you can still find it to wipe the seal and your target glue area. Do not use water w soap! My other dive buddies use Acetone instead of MEK to get similar results.

 

[Bopper]

MEK = Methyl Ethyl Ketone

Here's my summary:

• Glues that 'melt' when heat is applied to them:
  • Most people's 1st choice to attach latex seals to a laminate suit seems to be PB-300, a proprietary glue to a drysuit manufacturer in Oregon called OS systems. They charge $25.00 + shipping per 4 ounce tube. Don't know if they'd ship to Denmark. The glue is not currently on their website, but they do still sell it. I just checked with them this week.
  • Another choice would be to use the drysuit glue from Dive Right In Scuba. It's only $12.00 + shipping but I don't know if they ship to Denmark.
• Glues that do not melt when heat is applied to them:
  • DAP Weldwood contact cement. I've had very good results with this glue and - at least in the USA - it's available at any hardware store at a cheap price. DO NOT USE THE GREEN NON-FLAMMABLE VERSION.
  • Since you're in the EU region you might want to try drysuit manufacturers or replacement part vendors over there. My favorite place to order drysuit parts from is Seaskin.co. They have a two-part glue they highly recommend called Stormoprene. Unfortunately it can't be shipped outside the UK. BUT, you might be able to find a similar type of vendor (drysuit repair parts) in the Scandanavia area (that region produces a lot of drysuit technology).

Besides the obvious "it must form a strong bond", the additional qualities you're looking for in a glue are that it must be very flexible after it cures (not brittle at all), it must be waterproof, and hopefully it will release it's 'hold' after applying heat. This last aspect is not critical, but most people who work on their own drysuits would like to have the old seals come off easily when it's time to replace them. Just apply an iron or a heat gun and they come right off.

These glues - especially the ones that don't release with heat - are not rocket science. The qualities mentioned above are demanded by all sorts of products that are manufactured. When I first started working on my drysuit, I was very intimidated by exactly which glue to use. I ended up using Weldwood. It worked perfectly. So the 'mystery' glue could be found a block from my house for $8.00. You should do some research, but if I saw a drysuit replacement part website that was selling a glue that it recommended for seal replacement, I would pretty much assume that that glue would work very very well.