How To Repair Cracked Seams On Waterbed

Well, I hadda try.

The patching process began on Thursday of concluding week, and I slept on it over again Fri night. Saturday, it yet was dry out. But I slept on information technology for still another seven nights before I tempted fate and pronounced it leak-free (knock wood).

I first made a half-hearted attempt to patch it from the exterior. I did some online inquiry for homemade patches and found duct tape recommended on several blogs and forums. So I tried making a patch with gorilla-make duct tape. It didn't accept. It might have slowed down the leaking a bit, simply it still was leaking.

But it was leaking out the top and the bottom of the patch, where the body of the mattress joined to that corner cap. So I figured the reason seams were so hard to patch was that they lacked flat surfaces to bail to. Which made information technology difficult if non possible to get the patching textile down into the recesses. So I wondered if it might not be flatter on the

within

.

So I shrank myself, and shinnied down the make full pigsty with a patch kit.

Only kidding.

Fortunately, the leaky corner was the 1 second nearest the fill up hole, or it would accept been a lot more than difficult than information technology was. And so I tuckered the mattress, so worked the leaky corner around the fiberfill, over to the fill up hole, and pushed a tiny fleck of the bladder out of the pigsty.

The leak was a tiny slit (circled). Viewed from the within, information technology's not on a seam per se, but it is at the bottom of a crease. However, it isn't a 'hard' pucker, it's slightly radiused at the bottom.

The slit is only a fraction of an inch from the seam proper, which offered a slim opportunity to patch on a fairly apartment surface, but I figured a slim chance was improve than none atall, so I went to Home Depot and bought a $5 vinyl patch kit from their swimming pool supplies section.

I followed the instructions on the kit to the letter and patched over the hole with nigh a nickel-sized patch cut from the supplied canvas of vinyl. Earlier applying the patch, I cut a larger circular patch from a discarded plastic shower drapery, which I placed on height of the vinyl patch, then put a cotton wool brawl on top of the plastic patch, then clamped it all together with an Irwin quick grip.

The reason for the cotton fiber ball is that it would serve equally a pliable interface between the flat surface of the Irwin clamp and the irregular surface of the mattress, and hopefully push the patch downward equally deep as possible into all the little nooks and crannies.

I left it clamped most v minutes, then let is sit down undisturbed 12 hours, as per the directions. I figured the patch was leap to get roughed upward when that chip of bladder got pulled dorsum through the fill hole, so I gave it the full 12 hours to cure.

If one patch is expert, then two must be meliorate. And information technology's a really scary place within that bladder, so I didn't want to have to shrink myself downwardly to go back in there ever again, so I cut a patch from gorilla tape to apply on acme of the vinyl patch:

I also used the cotton ball and quick grip trick on the gorilla tape, but failed to take the precaution to employ the fleck of shower mantle again to divide the tape from the cotton ball, which is why there are fuzzy bits effectually the edge of the gorilla record. But in that location was no backing out at this betoken, and then I left it.

I pulled the corner out of the fill pigsty, then applied still another vinyl patch to the hole from the outside. If 2 patches are neat, three must be wunnerful, right? From what I had seen on the inside, the cotton ball trick works extremely well to become the vinyl patch to suit to irregular surfaces, and I figured it couldn't hurt, and so I did basically the same thing on the outside as I had on the inside. Except I didn't wait 12 hours for information technology to cure.

After removing the Irwin clamp, I examined the patch with a 6x hand lens, and I was extremely impressed with now it appeared to conform to the full depth of the furrows forth the seam. I can't know if that solitary might have been sufficient to stop the leak, making turning it within-out completely unnecessary, but that wasn't a concern at that point because it already was patched on the inside. Twice.

I could have sworn I took pictures of that patch as well, but either my photographic camera screwed up or I did. Either way, no more than pictures.

If three patches are wunnerful, so 4 must be fantastic, and so I covered the unabridged corner cap with a strip of gorilla tape. I ran the tip of a instance knife effectually the border to try to push button the tape as deep into that cleft around its periphery as possible. A patch that spans the entire seam area supposedly overcomes the limitation caused by the seam itself, and I figured the gorilla tape at to the lowest degree would make the corner more wear-resistant.

The truth is, I can't know with any certainty whether putting a 2d patch on peak of what appears to be one good one makes information technology more secure or if it interferes with the patch underneath. Nonetheless, I wanted never to accept to practise this again, then I rolled the die. Today makes nine days and in that location's even so no signs of a leak, so fingers crossed!

PS,
I seem to lack the power to edit the OP to add "SOLVED" to the title of this thread. If one of the mods should happen to read this, can you please so marker it?

Source: https://www.doityourself.com/forum/furniture-furnishings/527706-repair-leaky-waterbed-seam.html

Posted by: kellyforist.blogspot.com

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