Repair a Pred/Aternatives to rubber cement?

[Witchbreed]

Hello all,

I've just found your site/lair and am planning on purchasing my first suit in a few days. However, the suit is very old and needs some TLC. The body suit has started to peel and I was wondering what's the best course of action? I'm from England and nobody here seems to have heard of rubber cement!? Are there any European alternatives?

Any advice on repairs and or repainting would be most helpful. I've not undertaken a project like this before so I'll be learning as I go.

 

[TuaCathach]

when you say the suit has started to peel, what exaclty has started to peel.. pics might help as well mate

 

[Witchbreed]

I don't have any photos. The suit is latex applied to a wetsuit. Basically, the paint has started to peel off so I was going to repaint it. I know that the paints have to be flexible and as I'm no expert I was wondering what my options are.

 

[TuaCathach]

take off the flakey paint...

when repainting use prosaide and inks...

there are loads of option as to how you use these but to be honest in my opinion.

spray on your prosaide then spray on your inks (FW inks one of the best ). every now and again touch the area you are painting to see if it is tacky or sticky if its not apply prosaide again. repeat this until you are finished painting.. then seal it using the likes of liquitex gloss...

 

[Witchbreed]

Thanx for the advice. I'll look into getting them and having a go. I'll post pics etc up once it's all done.

 

[Double H]

Rubber cement in UK is used to repair punchers on inner tubes of push bikes.

 

[Effects Guy]

Rubber cement paints are going to bond better than anything else because it bonds at a chemical level. Prosaide is OK, and PAX paints would work, but they may eventually peel off, and they need to be well powdered as the Prosaide dries tacky.

As for finding it, never been to the UK, but my gut instinct would be to start with a couple of calls to industrial materials supply houses and hardware stores. Sometimes calling is no good with hardware stores as you get people that just do not know a lot of what the store stocks. You unfortunately may need to physically go and look around.

I would start there. Some creative searching via google may help, and you can search for companies like Barge or Best Test and see if they can refer you to companies in the UK that stock their product. I have had some success with this in other areas. If buying Barge, be sure it is the one in the gray and white can, because the stuff in the yellow can is barge glue and does not work for painting latex.

I hope that helps.

Cheers,

Mike