On a recent trip, a squirrel chewed three holes into the sil nylon vestibule of my Black Diamond [Bibler] Bombshelter [no - there wasn't a speck of food in there]. The tent is virtually brand new and was expensive so I'm trying to patch it as neatly [i.e. beautifully] as possible - aesthetics count here. I'd have BD replace the panel, but they can't. I've sourced some very similar ripstop sil nylon and what I want to do is glue three patches on the tent. In the past, I've patched rain pants etc. with just some "Seam Grip" and adhesive-backed ripstop - works well. I ran two tests with "adhesives" I had on hand: "Silnet" and "Seam Grip" - both failed miserably [easily peeled off]. I'd prefer to glue as opposed to sew, only because the patch looks more contiguous with the fabric.

What adhesives would people recommend for a strong sil nylon to sil nylon connection? I was thinking about getting some Hysol U09FL for another project - would this be a suitable adhesive for this project.

Thank you everyone!

For silnylon, the Silnet or any silicone adhesive should work. A possible reason for this failure is, if you glued your patch on the inner side of the tent fly, that it is not silicone coated on both sides but the inner is PU coated. This is common in tents because such fabrics can be taped easily. In that case, PU-based glue should be used, but it won't stick to the silnylon patch and you would need a regular coated nylon for the patch (if the holes are small, you can probably use also uncoated material saturated with the glue)

It is possible that the underside of your silnylon is PU coated but the top (outside) surface is not.
So if you put a patch on the outside smear a very thin layer of Silnet onto the fly, do the same onto the patch, let it rest for about 10 minutes (more if really dry weather, less if humid) then press together and put a weight on it. Wait for 8 hours or more before removing the weight.

> then press together and put a weight on it. Wait for 8 hours or more before removing the weight.
And leave for 72 hours before you do anything with it. Seriously.

Cheers

Thank you for the ideas/input.

Both the tent fabric and the patch fabric have one side that is 'matte' and one side that is 'shiny' ... I assume the shiny side is PU coated. When I first attempted to patch I put the Silnet on the PU side of the patch and then applied to the matte side [front] of the tent fabric. I then clamped-it between to square pieces of ply for 24 hrs. The patch peeled easily. As mentioned above, I then tested gluing PU side to PU side with Seam Grip and then clamped for 24 hrs - peeled even easier.

So, from distilling your ideas, I would need to either:

1] use just normal, uncoated nylon and Seam Grip - then clamp/press.

2] use the [potentially PU coated] silnylon I have, but smear a thin coat of Silnet on both surfaces, wait 10 and adhere - then press/clamp for 72 hrs.

Are there any adhesives that would work without question - like Hysol U-09FL? It's used with cuben all the time, what about silnylon.

Thank you!

Edited by redpoint on 10/10/2012 23:25:23 MDT.

A company called Gear Aid makes silnylon specific tape:

http://www.rei.com/product/783049/gear-aid-sil-fix-repair-kit

> I assume the shiny side is PU coated.
Doubtful. In general I find PU to be matte and silicone to be shiny.
Try again, the other way around?

Cheers