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Repairing gear

N

newcastlecaver

New member
hi,

Our club (University of Newcastle) has a lot of warmbac oversuits that have got massive tears in them and as we are very limitted on money, i was wondering if anyone has any good solutions for repairing them? Can it be done easily with a sowing machine or are we going to have to write them off? Also does anyone have any good ways of repairing tacklesacks (holes in the bases) or do most people write them off as well? I asked at a shoe repair place but they said they'd charge about £40 so not really worth it?

any ideas...?

from a bored student!
 
You can sew Warmbacs. Trick is to use the heaviest thread money can buy (upholstery thread is good), a good thimble, a chandler's needle (i.e. a very strong one) and a dull night in. Put the patch on the inside and fold the edges over to prevent them fraying.

Once you've done the stitching, cover the new seam with neoprene glue (I've used Seamgrip, seems to work) to prevent them all pulling through when the first thread gets worn through :oops:

That works pretty well until the fabric itself starts to wear out at which point repairs become unfeasible.

Good luck
 
Apparantly this works quite well:
1.) Clean the material thouroughly.
2.) Coat both sides in 'shoe glue' and press together.
3.) Sew securely aswell.

When the shoe glue sets its really hard and repairs well.

Unless you have access to an industrial sewing machine in which case that is probably better.
 
Ive stiched small tears with normal cotton then daubed a load of seam sealant (as used for sealing seams on new tents) over the stitching to guard against abrasion. seems to have worked.

small holes in ortleib bags are easily reparied with that stuff - as are flappy shoe soles. Its good stuff - that and gaff tape.

Remember - theres nowt you cant fix with gaffa - and theres nowt you cant undo with wd40
therefore in theory they are the only two things you need in life. :P
 
so, going by that theory, i could rig with gaffa tape instead of phaffing about with heavy maillons and de-rig the gaffa tape with WD40- now theres a plan.... or am i going mad?
 
I've repaired my oversuits (including Warmbac) just by gluing on patches made from pieces of other cannibalized oversuits, without stitching. The product I've used came from Bob and Bob in the US and was called Canvas Grip. It's a white latex glue, probably originally for repairing canvas tents. Works pretty good, and is quick.

But there's new-generation urethane glues which are better, and they even come in iron-on (heat-released glue) format, which is really super - I've used them on my current oversuit. I don't know if this is consumer-available tho, as I got mine thru an outdoor gear manufacturer here in Canada.

Also, I wear kneepads as a matter of course to protect my suit.
 
hi

I've found that if you clean the edges of a tear with acetone (nail varnish remover), it gets rid of any grease and the glue is more effective.

As an aside, one of the reasons most of the suits in my old uni club got trashed was by dimwits stuffing themselves into the smallest suits they could find. We discovered that humiliating the freshers by getting someone to check that they could bend and stretch in their chosen suit (and pointing out to more than half of them that yes, they were going to rip it across the behind if they so much as scratched their nose) really made one hell of a difference. Sounds sad that it needed to be done, but it saved ££££££££££s!

Rachel
 
Ee - when I were a lad we used to buy a large rectangle of neoprene, cut out the pre-marked sections and use neoprene glue to stick them all together and finally glue tape down all the seams. Then it was just a matter of gluing on spare bits of neoprene over any holes.

Most cavers (we used to wear a wetsuit all the time, even in bone dry caves!) seemed to have about 5 layers of neoprene over their knees and elbows by the time thay had patched the patch over the patch...

There's a story in Brcue Bedford's book "Challenge Underground" about a character who always used to spend the trip to Yorkshire or wherever gling the bits of his wetsuit together in the back of the van in a box and would after the caving trip put what was left of the suit back in the box for the next trip!

I suppose it's not so easy with modern double-lined wetsuits!
 
Yes, I remember even doing dry, vertical places like Nettle Pot with an old thick wetsuit chomping into the back of my knees. Must have been mad :oldgit:
 
You could just cover your Freshers in gaffa tape, and then spray them with wd40 when they get out of the cave :D

If you sew corduras, then knotting the thread every 10 stiches or so also helps prevent the whole thing unravelling if the thread tears.
 
Brendan said:
You could just cover your Freshers in gaffa tape, and then spray them with wd40 when they get out of the cave
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, this is ukcaving.com, not ukBDSM.com :wink:
 
Re bumping this old post, looks like 9 years down the line our suits are in the same condition again!
Ans as much as I value the uses of gaffa tape, we wouldn't want to go litter all the caves with it as it falls off.

- Does anyone have any other experiences patching suits, and know of a good cheap supply of cordura? maybe offcuts from somewhere.

- And the tacklesacks are all leaking rope again, is there a good method to fixing these too?

Many thanks,
Another bored student
 
Joe.Bones said:
- Does anyone have any other experiences patching suits, and know of a good cheap supply of cordura? maybe offcuts from somewhere.
Click to expand...
Sacrifice the worst suit to make patches for the next few years and follow the above advice.
 
speak to warmbac nicely for patches

i got some heavy duty thread from the local sewing shop

my local seamstress shop repair them for about ?10 patch, tho or suits arent in that bad condition
 
I did email warmbac today asking if they sold scraps on for patching, so we shall see how that goes if i get a reply.
Failing that it'll be buying one of those knackered suits that crop up on ebay and chop it up.
Thanks for the suggestions
 
I bought some of this to seal the back door frame. I have been using up what is left on my over suit and it seems to work pretty well. It sticks fabric and seals seams and holes, no solvents. Available from Screwfix

ae235
 
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