As I understand it Erin and Hig do this with a (conventional) iron. I acquired a full length Prolite 3 at a ski swap cheap, and am thinking about cutting my PL3 shortie to make it even smaller.

Any experience doing this would be appreciated before I take the plunge. (Working on a sub 1.5 lb sleeping kit for spring trips.)

Edited by DaveC on 11/05/2008 17:36:06 MST.

IF I remember right, someone (maybe Roger?) did a MYOG article on this very thing. I believe it was several years old when I read it. I think the author was using a standard thermarest and had his doubts about its effectiveness with the Prolite line. This is all subject to m memory (inherently faulty), I don't have time to search right now.

Tim

I did it and it works surprisingly well. My old thermarest developed a delaminated bubble almost in the middle, so became useless.

I cut the healthy half and sealed it, following the instructions in the MYOG article here, and it worked. I gat perfect seal and I'm using it from time to time since then.

The Erin's/Hig's idea to delaminate the place of the cut using iron on inflated pad may save quite a lot of work with removing the foam from the area to be resealed. Give it a try!

The method we found worked best is to pluck out some foam inside the cut then hand / machine sew the sides together folding over one side so there is a rounded edge. Then open up a tube of aqua-seal and go nuts. I repaired mine on Unimak island like this and later they did the same thing to a brand new prolite to make a pfd.