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Information Tube Repairs

TubeRepairs
Tony Lee-Elliott of Flatacraft reveals the tricks of the trade by showing how you too can be darn clever with needle in hand at repairing a damaged RIB tube. You never know when his words of wisdom might come in handy.

have been asked to give our readers some ideas on how to repair an inatable collar. Although likely to be teaching many old RIBsters how to suck birds eggs, there might be a few tricks covered that have not found their way into everyones arsenal of DIY inatable gimmicks. I cover in detail all eventualities and the methods to repair the problems. At the very end of the article, I list a quick 19 point repair sequence, and each part is explained in full somewhere in the instructions. Whilst I list all the useful skills, tools and ingredients to do the work, some repairs will not be easy to achieve and some will be well nigh impossible if you are not good with your hands and do not have a feel for what you are doing. Conditions, patience and planning are more than half the job and I can only say that if you are struggling, dont want the craft for a few days, and appreciate that lives might be at risk if things go wrong then please leave it to the professionals. I always taught my staff to work with a conscience, since lives were at risk if production procedures were not followed and achieved. If any laminator was not happy with the work he had done, it had to be corrected before going home. We all knew

that faults would not be put right overnight by a Fairy Godmother. We all make mistakes, but leaving a poor piece of work is the unforgivable one. I wrote these instructions exactly 31 years ago and have always included them in the heavy duty repair kits that I supplied to my owners when they went abroad with their RIBs. Inatable materials, solvents and two-part neoprene cements have not changed that much over the years and I do not see any reason to change the advice written all that time ago, since I still use and practice these procedures today. Over 2000 copies of what is written below, have been dispatched to my owners and emergency repairs have been effected as far aeld as The Falklands when British troops recaptured Flatacraft RIBs. Up the Amazon, when piranha attacked a Force4 during the lming of the Emerald Forest, and to the 14 RIBs in Iceland that form the backbone of the Rescue Services up there. A few ground rules, some of which will be repeated in the text, later. I am not a fan of polyurethane and PVC fabrics or high frequency welded seams and I will not be covering the repairs of these. I use a two part neoprene

cement, hereinafter called the glue or adhesive, the part two of which is a highly sensitive thin isocyanate liquid, that is easy to mix with the part one. One of my successes in getting a satisfactory stick has been achieved by using a bufng solvent and not by scufng and abrading the fabrics, since this leaves loose particles of the top coat to act as a dusty release agent. Besides, if there is a lm of oil in the damaged area, it is merely spread rather than removed. So instead of scufng, I use a three part solvent that cleans off any impurities that might affect the adhesive from achieving a good stick. By impurities I mean anything from grease off food, grease from hands that might have been servicing the engine, two-stroke oil when re-fuelling, suntan oil and just general grime and fallout from being exposed to the elements and the crew. And one other thing, some of the silicone fabric protectors and conditioners that make the collar look smart contain waxes that are not good for getting a good stick. So back to the magic solvent. Continued bufng with it bloats the top coat so that its rubber pores stand up on end. It is at this stage that the two-part glue is quickly and evenly applied. The bufng solvent eventually evaporates from the fabric and allows the top coat to go back into its original form taking the glue with it. I always apply a second and sometimes up to four thin coats of glue to each surface. Thick coats remain viscose under the dried top surface for some time and prevent the repair from being worked on when pressure from any source needs to be applied so coats are better. A well applied and timed application should be able to be inated to take shape almost at once to about .5 of a psi, and a pin prick puncture to 1.5 psi straight away. Remember that RIBs are rarely inated beyond 3 psi, but should be run inated hard when in use, especially in the rough.

Preparation:
Regardless of your repair, all the following

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paragraphs should be read. Preferably before your RIB is damaged and any repair is needed. Forewarned is forearmed! The most important part about repairing inatables is the preparation, giving yourself time to do a good job, choosing good conditions and the rehearsing of sticking A to B before any glue has been mixed let alone applied. If the job requires four pairs of hands, a feat of daring and some Dutch courage, better get them all lined up well in advance, rather than discover the bare necessities just when A decides to go anywhere rather than onto B. water. Inside the tube too if internal repairs are needed. Salt never dries and continues to attracts moisture and this will dull the glues shiny surface (takes on a bloom). Do dry it all over thoroughly, and warm with a small turbo fan heater. Do move the craft into a dry and airy room. Good ventilation is a must. Do think about what might start a re and what you would do if it did. Do have extinguishers at the ready. Do leave the fuel tank outside. Do read all of these instructions. is a neoprene cement which is mixed with part 2 (75% of nal mix) - an isocyanate (a long term curing and keying agent which attracts moisture so keep the bottle top on tight.). This mix should be used for repairs that are going to be under pressure, strain or inated when the craft is in use.

Health and Safety:

The adhesive gives off fumes. Do not deliberately breath them in and keep them away from any naked lights. The fumes can become a mild depressant and in the long term a de-fatting agent of the hands if used a lot. Unfortunately, using gloves, rubber or otherwise, just isnt compatible with the handling and feeling for the job that requires you to grip the fabric precisely. Just work neatly and carefully. The glues part 2, is isocyanate, which comes in a little clear bottle and is the colour of whisky, can be a severe irritant if you rub it into your eyes or an open wound, so dont. The Health and Safety people are there for a reason - and whilst sometimes they can be a bit of a drag their advice coupled with common sense should prevail.

Test Sticks:
If you have a lot of tricky repairs to carry out, I strongly suggest that you do some test sticks: Cut an even number of strips, 6 x 1 wide, from some gash bits of fabric and prepare them as though you were going to do a stick, but only glue the bottom 4 of each strip, leaving the top 2 clean, dry and free of glue. Do not make a really special effort to clean and scrub, but rather prepare them in a matter of fact fashion, but not slap dash, alternating the stick sides from the top coloured to black neoprene inside coats. Also alternate the number of layers of glue used and different timings between the contact of the two glued surfaces. Vary the pressure of rolling too. I usually cut about 16 strips to give me 8 different combinations of gluing sequences. Write on the samples what each stick consisted of and the date completed. About 3 to 10 days later I try to pull and peel the sticks apart, having the top 2 on each side to grab hold of. If you can pull them apart with or without delamination, you must be the judge of whether your methods are good enough. Remember, that if you prepare your test sticks very well, then you should expect faultless lamination results. You should always get a better stick to the black neoprene side, since the hypalon side does not give you such good adhesion. Always try to work better on the job in hand, than you did when carrying out your trials sticks. The Flatacraft rubber-boys always had sample sticks near their work benches for me to try to pull apart. The Bostik Export Department, just down the road from us, used to bring their own conducted tours of foreigners along to us and much tugging of sticks used to take place. Having Bostik close by, was very benecial in the early seventies and between us we managed to achieve bonds that could withstand tremendous pressure. All very impressive, as your sticks should and will be!

Preparations and list of tools required:

A pressure gauge. You do not need one! If you draw a square inch on a piece of paper, then put your left thumb on top of it and draw around your thumb, you will see that the two areas are about the same size. Now judge when you are pressing down with your thumb to crate a pressure of two to three pounds. Get your thumbs and scales out. Go on, try it. Then do it with your eyes shut. Easy - and that has saved you 50.00 for an opener. For that is all we inate our ribs to, about 2.5 to 3lbs psi. Over inate and the collar will create a ringing sound when you give it a good slap. I would sooner you were slightly over the pressure than under, when using the craft. Boat and damage to be easily accessible. Create a at work area and get a short plank, say 2ft x 6ins to pressure roll collar repairs on. Correct size patching material and colour is to hand. Nylon thread, (20 grade) and large sharp needle, about 4, for sewing up large rips that cannot be patched initially from the inside. Roller, (no more than 1.5 wide, of metal or nylon and a strong wooden handle) or spoon handle for applying pressure on patch. Whale bones if you have one foot in the grave. Clothes pegs, about 20, for keeping fabric under control and apart whilst glue is drying. New glue brush, medium stiff bristles,1/2 to 1 wide. Up to 2 wide for big patches over 1 square ft. Flexi-pad. I glue two sheets of cloth backed 40 grade wet or dry together and call this my Flexi-pad. It helps to remove old glue when softened. I score and rough up the back of the at plastic rubbing strakes and of course mattat the shiny GRP surfaces. Clean rags. Only terry cotton (nappy/ toweling) will do, as it holds the solvent. Other fabrics let the solvent drip and evaporate fast. So search out a clean old towel. A clean mixing tin, ex-baked beans or similar, but not pet food or sh tins and certainly not made of plastic. A clean stirring stick perhaps a length of bamboo. Cleaner/thinners/bufng agent. Two part adhesive. Part I (25% of nal mix)

Leak Testing:
Leaks are best looked for when peace and quiet reigns. If there is a howling gale and trafc roaring past, you wont hear or see much. Finding an annoying leak is usually more than half the problem, and sometimes it is just a bit of dirt in the valve. Most valves are tted on the inside of the collar at 3 and 9 oclock and therefore cannot be lled with water, but you can leak test with a weak solution of washing up liquid. Draw a bubble membrane across the top of the open valve and it should give a good indication as to what is going on. If you can tilt the boat so that the valve is looking straight up at you, just ll it with clear water and see where it is leaking. Remember that if you have any sand or grass on your foot when you are inating the collar, then it will be sucked into the footpump and passed up to the valve diaphragm in the collar to cause a minute air-way. Generally this can be blown out by jabbing at the quick deation button. Otherwise the valve core will have to be removed and washed. Sometimes a grain of dirt can be removed by running a round ended thin object, such as a bodkin, inside the valve to work at the

A few important DONTs:

Dont rush for your repair kit when on the beach. A small pin prick leak does not render a craft inoperative. A major tear or delamination of a seam requires considerable thought and time. Dont try to effect a repair if the day is wet or muggy. Unless you can get the craft under cover, have a hot air gun to hand and have a good supply of solvent, best forget it. Dont attempt to use the craft on the same day as a major repair. Leave deated and go to the cinema instead. Dont light up a fag to calm your nerves. All the materials are inammable. Some highly so. Keep the place well ventilated with re extinguishers at the ready.

A few basic DOs:

Do wash the boat down all over with clean fresh

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