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Making and Using PVC Goop If you want a deeper understanding of how well this works please have a look at this repair of a blow out on one of our paddle boards. The board is doing great and is back in service. There is a marvelous solvent that is called THF (Tetra hydra furan). It is the major component in PVC pipe cement. This solvent will melt PVC and Urethane. You can use this melted compound to actually coat bare spots on a boat, or to help seal up pinholes in the material. For Urethane, you must melt the coating off of fabric that you use for repair. This works well, because the color can be matched exactly. You can also melt the coating off of PVC fabric. However newer PVC fabrics have a base solution coat that make them more air retentive. This base coat is usually white, and the white will mix with the other top layer resulting in a lighter coating if you try to get all of the coating off of the fabric. The way we recomend making goop: For PVC we often recommend that a customer buy some vinyl tubing and cut it into little pieces in a Tupperware container, ( either Polyethelene or Polypropolene containers- a butter container is polypropalene, Polyethelene is the same thing as tupperware. any food container with a lid is usualy polyethelene look for the PE or PP in the recycling sign on the container bottom) and then fill it with solvent until the solvent just covers the cut up tubing. The resulting mixture looks like transparent spaghetti O's. Desolveing of the materials must be done 1 day prior to use. Thin it down to the consistancy of maple syrup. This is the way to get coating of the correct color for a top coat. Hold the fabric in a concave shape, and pour THF in this depression ofmaterial. Use a razor knive to scrape the melted coating away. You can get an exact color match if you do not go too deep into a white colored fabric tie coat. Take the scraped material and place it in a butter container (mentioned below) and use a brush and more thf to smooth it out. . If you intend to strip the coating from the fabric, acordian fold the material strips. Place the folds on edge, and allow them to sit in the solvent for 2 hours. Use plastic gloves (food handlers gloves made of polyethylene) to remove the fabric form the solution. Simply grab the fabric and pull it between your fingers (with plastic Gloves on) to squeegee the softened plastic off of the fabric back into the Tupperware container. This is not recomended for drop stitch fabric. Remember that this solvent will evaporate fast. Keep it in a covered airtight Tupperware container. Always be careful with solvents. Do not use them around open flames like water heater pilot lights. Wear Goggles. This is strictly an outside activity. Keep these solvents away from children. Use plenty of ventilation and do not do this in the rain. Evaporation will collect water vapor on the surface and it will not cure, because the water vapor will hold the evaporative product inside. Thin solutions of this material (Tomato soup consistency) with multiple coats. Will give the best results. This consistency will have enough solvent in the solution to melt into the existing coating, yet will not dissolve all the way through the fabric to the other side before it dries. Do not allow it to puddle up on a drop stitch surface. It could go through to the other side and effectively weld the two sides together. |
Order inquiries: shop.jpwinc@gmail.com © 2011 Jack's Plastic Welding, Inc
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