glue for fixing tube patch
 

ran out of glue for my tire patches
yet i have a huge supply of patches
what type of glue or what can i buy in large volume that work good for patching tubes?

thanks

You want "vulcanizing fluid" and my guess is that there are some cheaper brands at auto parts stores but I have no experience to recommend any specific brands. A sure bet for quality is the REMA vulcanizing fluid. Not the cheapest but won't fail you if applied properly. rema vulcanizing fluid | eBay Some claim rubber cement works too but IME not nearly as permanent.

You want tire tube patch Vulcanizing rubber cement/fluid. It is available in larger cans with brush applicator or in small tubes like in patch kits.

In Australia and S E Asia, you can buy more of the same type of glue that's used for fixing patches. One shop that sells it in Australia is a shop that sells car accessories. You must be able to in Canada. You will probably find several different shops that sell it.

I think you're better off buying a bunch of small tubes than a big can. That stuff evaporates really fast once you open it.

I use plain old Elmer's Rubber Cement and haven't had any problems with leaks developing even years later. It's available in any hardware or craft store. Just use according to instructions for a permanent fix.

just like pvc cement. such a waste, too

Vulcanizing and rubber cement once opened just wont keep in the southern heat without special care. Another problem is you can have several new small tubes unopened but completely dry. I weigh my little Rema tubes and they come in at about 10 grams. If they are less then that they are most likely empty. I also carry a little tube of generic super glue with my patch kit and that has worked for temporary fixes.

I read on this forum of a person who when they get a flat they insert the tip of a tooth pick with super glue on it and after trimming close it has sealed the hole. I have never done this but it seems plausible.

Found a youtube link, but I have never tried it...

My superglue tubes dry up very quickly.

I can usually use a patch kit good for quite some time. Some of the cheaper "generic" patch kits give larger tubes.

I use these 2 products that come in 8 Oz cans with lid brush applicators. Not sure if you can get them in the North but here they are available from many sources.

Both have had good results and are available from our local auto parts stores
.

Slime Rubber Cement W/ No-Mess Brush Applicator 8 oz.- 1050

• XTRA SEAL - Tire Repair Cement, Flammable, 8 Oz.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5f5cbf2e3e.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e365948e4f.jpg

i bought a park tool patch kit and the glue was useless, could not get the patch to stick, i wonder if the goverment made them tone down the ingredients? so i just stocked up on tubes, my patching days are over. got about 40 of them, kenda, bell, you name it, all in that super rare 33mm stem cuz we old.

yes the glue dries up soon after you open the tube.

they use to have these cool little spansules, it was one dose in a gel like tear-dropped shaped package with a nipple you snipped off, best glue i ever used, but apparently someone let their child eat one and that was that, taken off the market.

come to think of it they did kind of resemble gummy bears with their red color and squishy texture so i can see the mistake happenin.

what to do with the old tubes? i was thinking of maybe a water balloon slingshot (summer is almost here), a hammock, a rope swing, and possibly a new butyl lawn chair. all the tubes look the same. probably all from the same factory with 1000 workers and a hundred watt light bulb and bad ventilation. sad, hate to support that but what to do? maybe go tubeless?

I've had good luck with Elmer's Rubber Cement -- patches lasted probably 4-5 years.

Lost a can of Rema when it dried up over a summer. Trust me, losing a $25 can hurts more than losing a $3 tube that way.

I'm starting on my third summer with theJoeTBM referenced. As of the late winter patching party, it's doing fine -- and no failures on patches glued on with it, either.

Of course, the key is good surface preparation on the tube. You've got to sand or scrape the mold release layer off the top of the rubber.

Whale Mart sells the Slime in both tubes and large cans. Can't go wrong.

The can I have I opened in 2013. Still good. Getting close to empty, though.

Same here. Don't recall when I bought it, but it has been years. The Victor can I have actually has a halfway decent seal on the cap.

Keep your glue in the fridge.
I have a glue fridge instead of a beer fridge. Everything adhesive goes in there, lasts way longer. Even opened tubes of roof and gutter silicone will last for a year or so minimum. Two reasons, one is the cold slows down chemical reactions and the evaporation of solvents (as in the case of patch glues), and the other is that the cold reduces the humidity and a lot of glues are moisture activated,

Although cement described as 'vulcanizing' results in a stronger bond between patch and tube, it is considerably more expensive
and IME over the past 23 yrs, such as the Slime illustrated above are more than adequate and in the central south an 8 oz can
is good for at least 5 yrs. I am on my 3d such can since the early '00s and it is still good. A splash of solvent every 3-4 yrs and
a good mix would rejuvenate but it is not necessary at $5/8oz at any Wm or auto parts store. The small tubes in repair kits
are good for less than 6 mo IME unopened and much less when punctured for use. Note: my Slime is stored in my garage which
floats up to !00F in the summer. Might last longer in the fridge but it lasts a long time anyway.

I've also had good results with Elmer's rubber cement. It isn't as good as true "vulcanizing fluid" but it's good enough and failures are rare if it's used right. You have to sand and clean the tube around the puncture to provide a good surface, spread the glue thinly and let it dry before applying the patch (Rema only). The benefit of Elmer's is that it's cheap, available in any big box store and has uses other than tire patching.

I've found that almost nothing works if the puncture is close to a mold seam or at the valve base in the tube. Those tubes get discarded right away.

Whether it's a tube or can, if you store it upside down, it will not allow air to seep into the container, and the glue will last longer.

Gotta disagree. The solvent will only evaporate if the can or tube isn’t closed properly. The tubes of fluid are sealed at the factory and the seal has to be pierced to be used. Yes, it can dry out but only if the cap isn’t properly sealed. The can, on the other hand, has no special seal from the factory. It’s filled and shipped in exactly the same condition that it will sit on a bench.

Bottom line: put the cap on properly and the fluid will last for years.

Clarification: Vulcanizing fluid will only work if the patch and fluid have the proper chemical make-up. If you have a bunch of patches from Rema, you can use Rema vulcanizing fluid to make a good permanent patch. But if you have a different brand of patch, the Rema is only expensive rubber glue. I’ve looked at all kinds of different patch cements and I’ve found that the only one that really does cold vulcanization is the Rema. All the others are just contact cement patches.

This at the local auto parts store.

I'm sure you have your process down, but you're the exception. I know you know this, but the volatiles in the can evaporate until the partial pressure of the solvent in the air above the fluid is at saturation. Every time you open the can you let in some fresh air and no matter how well you close it there will be more evaporation into the unsaturated atmosphere. This is a bigger issue the larger the ratio of air to fluid. If you only glue one patch at a time, you're opening the can and refreshing the air with every patch.

My hypothesis: If one can would do 200 patches in a single setting, you would get far fewer patches glued doing one at a time, every two weeks before the stuff was gone. Even worse if you leave the can open during the patching, and even even worse if you do it in warm weather.

I only go through a few of those little tubes per year, so cans don't make any sense for me at all.

I only really work with cans of vulcanizing fluid at my local co-op. Even there with the cans being constantly opened and closed, a can of fluid can last for weeks. The fluid can dry out but that usually only happens at the very bottom of the can and when the cap is left off.

As for the saturation question, let’s assume that all the solvent is xylene. Xylene has a saturation point of 38g per cubic meter at 20°C and 68g per cubic meter at 30°C. That’s room temperautre and about 90°F. A can of fluid has a volume of 240 mL. If the can were empty, the amount of xylene above the fluid would be 0.068 miligrams. An 8 oz can weighs about 225g. Let’s assume that the xylene is about 1/3 of the weight or 75g. To just open and close the can, flush out the air over the, that works out to 1100 openings before you’d saturate the air over the fluid with that amount of xylene. And that would be at 90°F. It jumps up to about 2000 times at room temperature.

That’s also assuming a 240 mL headspace. When the can is full, the volume of that headspace is around 60 mL.

I don’t agree. If you make sure the can is closed between uses, it’s not hard to get close to the 1000 patches per can that I worked out above. I do agree that a can is overkill for most people...it is too easy to leave the can open. I generally use tubes of glue but last year I did a patching project for my co-op and bought a can of glue. I did about 150 patches about a year ago and have done a few patches since. The fluid is just fine even after sitting in my garage through winter and summer temperatures.

OK, that was a fun explanation, and I'm softening my position a little bit because I didn't realize how cheap those cans are. An 8oz can is roughly the price of five 10g tubes. So the calculation now is this: assume the can will yield acceptable glue for ... five years before it's unusable. If you use more than one 10g tube per year for patching, it would be cheaper to buy the can. Financially, you could save SCORES of cents per year.

But if you bugger up the threads on that cheap metal cap, or don't get it on perfectly just once... it's not there next time you need it.

Rema is mostly Naphtha, which is a blend of hydrocarbons and can have a boiling point as low as 40C... way way way lower than xylene.

https://www.rematiptop.com/assets/te...2020%20JFO.pdf

Well, that would be true whether you used any or not :lol:
Do you agree with the 1000 patches per can estimate?