Don't Throw Away Those Rubber Boots!

FREELAND, Wash. - Dec. 5, 2015 - PRLog -- "In the Pacific Northwest, we live in our rubber boots 2 or 3 seasons of the year" says Dan Vorhis of Freeland, WA. Dan and his wife Bernadine Mahar have lived on their small orchard farm for 21 years. They had just come back from cleaning out a neighbor's goat stall.

"With quality rubber boots starting at $75, I hate to send a pair to the landfill because they have a little flex crack. I'd been looking for a patch that holds up, but no luck after about 10 years of searching."

Along with caring for their apple trees and other work, Dan and Bernie have a small, web-based business, "Muscle and Arm Farm". Dan designs and sells innovative gardening and DIY products. A boot patch, "that really works" seemed a logical addition to their product offering.

"I tried the silicon putty from England. It is relatively expensive material. And it bonded to the rubber and sealed better than the tapes. But it, too, failed after about a month - the silicon elastomer itself simply cracked." Dan showed me a cracked gray patch.

"Then I remembered a moisture-cure polyurethane construction sealant we had used on a project in Seattle."

This polyurethane material is less expensive than the air-cure silicone, much tougher in terms of tear strength and resistance to abrasion, has excellent adhesion. "And it gets stronger over time in contact with water," Dan explained.

The material is called "Sikaflex® 1A", made by Sika® Corporation. It comes in various colors and is available through construction supply companies and on Dan's website.

"I am not a Sika representative or anything," says Dan."In fact, you should be able to find this material on Amazon for less than I can sell it for. But you know, when you find a product that works well, you want to tell people about it. This Sikaflex 1A, applied properly, really makes a long-lasting, very tough boot patch!"

Dan says there is a neat trick to applying the patch correctly so it doesn't peel off.

"I learned this trick from a chemical engineer at one of the adhesive companies when we were trying to improve the adhesion strength of a certain thermoplastic. But I'm not going to tell you here, you will have to check out my website!"

Go to http://www.MuscleAndArmFarm.com and follow the "boot patch that works" link, in upper right. It is worth seeing the short instructions with pictures, in any case.

Dan showed me a pair of boots he had repaired. The black patch covered an area near the ball of the foot that had cracked from repeated flexing.

"There was plenty of tread left on these boots. It is fun walking through puddles and getting some extra miles out of them!"