maxm,
it sounds like you have a couple of Zodiacs. If that is the case or the material of the boats is similar to Zodiacs (ie not hypalon) there is no cheap way of doing it except by doing it your self.
It is not hard to do but do not waste your labour by using cheap glue.
I bought a 750ml pack of genuine Zodiac glue which includes three small bottles of the accellerant. I bought it from Marine Safe Australia in Brisbane for about $76.
I have dealt with this company for many years. They are not cheap but they don't rip you off either. They are the authorised distributor and warranty repair agent for Zodiac in Qld.
The Inflateable Boat Centre sell a similar glue that they buy in bulk and repackage in smaller packs but it is dearer by the ml to buy. You will need the 750ml for your job.
Further material you will need is MEK (methylethyl ketone) which is highly volatile (evaporates very quickly) which is commonly available and fairly cheap as plumber's primer fluid. Get the non coloured one. Don't sniff it as it will fry your brain, make sure it is well out of reach of children and only use it and the glue in a well ventilated area.
You will also need a small plastic mixing bowl (lid off an aerosol can), a stainless bread and butter knife for mixing and a narrow roller (as used for rolling the bead into screen doors to retain the fly screening). A 25mm paint brush with the bristles cut down to 25 or 30mm long is needed for glue application.
Also needed are 6-8 adjustable clamps (Sam's Warehouse or Supercheap Auto) and 4 pine or meranti 40mm or possibly 80mm x 19mm battens 500mm long.
Technique:-
Full instructions for the use of the glue are printed on the tin.
You need to carefully peel the floor of the dinghy right back to the transom as the rest of the original glue is about to let go too. Clean off as much of the old glue as possible by scraping with the knife and presoftening the glue with MEK. If peeling the floor back starts lift the top layer of the material, obviously stop there.
Limit the application of the MEK to the area to be glued only and do not use it as a cleaning fluid to remove stains from the boat. It will take the stains off very well but the material will remain sticky forever and attract more sand, dirt etc.
Inflate the tubes to full inflation and with help, hold the floor into the position it needs to be without too much slack in it and accurately mark with a biro the edges of the joins.
Fully deflate the tubes, working forward from the transom, mark off on each side a 450mm section to be glued. Doing a side at a time, prepare the surfaces, apply the glue and join the surfaces as per the instructions.
As soon as you join the surfaces on the first side use the rounded end of the handle of the knife or the fly screen roller to press out any air in the joint. All the while check that the joint is occurring where it should. If you have to peel it back and re do it now is the time, not the next day.
If you are satisfied with the joint, use two of the battens and half of the clamps to clamp the joint. Then repeat the whole of the process on the other side of the dinghy.
Marine Safe told me that clamping is not necessary with the current glue and that they glue the whole floor in one go. They are tooled up to do this and do it every day of the week. We are not and we do not. If you do it right you will probably never have call to do it again. If you get it wrong you will never WANT to do it again.
So the first section on each side has been glued and left clamped overnight. Remove the clamps and inflate the tubes but not up to full hardness. At this point we are checking to see if the floor is too tight or too loose.
We are also checking to see if we are rank amateurs who have not a clue about what we are doing and should take the boat to the Zodiac shop and get them to do it properly,
or, because we have taken some care and stuck to instructions and proceedure we are saving ourselves $70+ per hour in relatively unskilled labour costs and should proceed to completion of the job.
If you are happy with the result thus far, and it is a short dinghy (say a 2.4m or 2.6m), I would fully or near fully inflate the tubes and proceed to marking and glueing the front edge of the floor. The reason for this is to eliminate any progressive error in the positioning of the floor. There is nearly always a little bit of error but it is better to have half of it on each side than a water scoop in the middle of the front edge.
With the slat bottom boat, I would get rid of the slats as they wear holes in the floor at the corner of the slats. With a short dinghy it is quite easy to make and fit a two or three piece plywood floor with aluminium H section joiner pieces. If when glueing you have ended up with a bit of slack in the floor (intentionally or not) you will have room to fit a shaped timber batten to the underside of the ply floor boards as a directional keel. It is then feasible to use a higher horsepower motor and have a planing dinghy. A further benefit of the ply floor boards is that they spread the load on the PVC floor more evenly.
There is another glue available which seems to work quite well but only for minor patch repairs but allegedly it can be used underwater. I bought it from a vinyl, foam and rubber shop. It has no particular brand name but is called "Heavy Duty Vinyl Pool Repair Kit" is stock code 76114 and is made in China exclusively for Graeme Aaron & Co Pty Ltd, 12 Devlan St., Mansfield, Qld 4122. Ph (07)38495385 Fax (07)38495384d 4122
Hints and Tips:- The Zodiac glue is very moisture sensitive. Low humidity days are best. The cracking off of the solvents has a cooling effect and may cause condensation on the surface of the glue. This has a cloudy or milky appearance. If you get this use a heat gun/hair dryer to dry it off and apply another light coat of glue.
Store your glue in a fridge (5-30 degrees) especially an opened and resealed container.
Don't let your wife/girlfriend wear stiletto heeled shoes in the inflateable and don't pick up hitch hiking echidnas or porcupines.
All inflateable boats leak air, even brand new ones.
Hope this is of help. If you get it right you will save your self several hundred dollars and get several more years out of the boat. I have done two boats like this and am soon going to do another. As I only paid $50 for it, it is worth the exercise. However I must admit I did not keep the first two boats long term but for the several months I kept each one with some rigourous usage there was no failure or sign of impending failure of the repairs.
If you decide to go ahead with the repair, you might consider photographing it in stages and posting them in a thread, "Repairing Inflateable Dinghies".
I am certainly not going to type out this lot again. Cheers Cisco.
EDIT:- I have copied and pasted all the above into a word doc which can be printed out. Any of the readers could do that too. It will save you rebuilding a Zodiac in your office in front of your computer.
