Leaky Waders Aren't Much Fun.

Extend the life of your waders...
...for under
$10 bucks!

I can't believe we are in the middle of fall fishing already. The seasons have rushed on by. What a great summer it has been. Lots of good water and beautiful fish. I have been getting out as often as I can and over the last few outings started to notice that my left wader foot was getting progressively leaky.  I wear Chota hip waders. I love that they are lightweight and pack small.  They are perfect for most every stream I fish. Not super expensive but also not cheap. I would like to get more than a few seasons out of them.  In the past I had touched up the seams that started to peel back with a little super glue. These held pretty well for a while. 

Unfortunately the waders near the end of this season have been just slowly wetting my socks. The left wader finally got so bad that it immediately soaked my sock just stepping into the water. I looked for a seam that might be blown out and eventually using an old trick found an actual hole in the toe. More about that shortly.

At first I thought maybe I would just try and reseal everything up again with the old superglue. One thing that I noticed about using superglue though was that it would eventually crack and flake.  What I really needed was a rubberized substance that I could apply to the seams.  I remembered a product that I had seen at the hardware store used for resealing leaky gutters and such.  Then I also remembered a product used for dipping tool handles into that created a rubberized grip.  With a little on line research I found Plasti-Dip by Performix was also now available in an aerosol spray. Basically a spray on rubberized sealer! This product seems to have sealed my seams dare I say better than manufacturer's standards.

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Patching and Sealing Pointers

1. Clean all surfaces
Sometimes just cleaning the surfaces of your waders will reveal where the leaks are likely coming from. For sure you will want your surfaces to be clean before applying the Plasit-Dip.  Using a soap and water mixture and a small soft bristle brush remove any dirty build up.

2. Locate all potential leaks
- Light em up!
Finding where your leaks are can be done in a number of ways. Sure you could fill the wader with water and let the water reveal where the leak is. But then you have to wait for the waders to dry. Don't use water... use "light"
I took a bright desk lamp and shone it down into my waders. Turned the lights down in the room and quickly found a pretty good hole in the toe of my wader. This is an incredible way to find the holes in your waders. I found one other hole that was not in the neoprene but in the fabric portion of the wader as well using this same method. Holes really stand out. You can't miss them. You will want to mark the holes some how. I used a sharpie marker to circle the holes. The toe hole didn't need to be marked out because once I found it it was so obvious.

Putting a bright light inside your waders and turning off the lights can reveal the obvious just like this hole in the neoprene toe of my wader.

3. Creating a rubberized patch.
For the cloth area of the waders I didn't want to just spray all willy-nilly and cover the wader with a mist of black paint. Instead I masked off the area around the hole which was pretty much just a pin hole sized snag. I used duct tape because it was what I had on hand. I am sure that painter's blue tape would work just as well.  I used the tape to mask off a nice 1" square around the hole. I then took sheets of paper and covered around the edges of the tape leaving only the area to be sprayed exposed. I sprayed on a single coat, let it dry and then did a second coat let it dry and finally a third coat and let it dry. After that I was able to pull up the tape and had a nice square patch over the hole. I kind of

Plasti-Dip comes in many colors but for the sake of subtlety and simplicity I used the black. These patches add character to your waders that make them look well used.

4. Filling in the toe hole.
The toe hole in the neoprene was fortunately not a "gaping hole" but was instead the kind of hole that was just starting to wear through.  I would think that if it was a gaping hole you would need to apply some cloth tape as a patch to the hole and then apply the sealant over the top of this. I hung my waders from hooks on my back patio. Outdoors or in a well ventilated area is where you want to safely spray the product.  I again applied the rubberized spray in light coats letting each coat dry before applying the next. The result was a slowly built up blob of rubberized paint over the hole.

You can see that the toe hole filled in quite well. Note also that he seam absorbed and pooled up a lot of the Plasti-Dip too. This all hardens but is still flexible.

5. Sealing up your seams better than the factory.
I was so impressed with the results that I decided that I would go ahead and reinforce all of the seams in the neoprene sock portions of the waders.  Again hanging the waders from hooks I was able to spray the suspended waders with the spray directly onto the seams.  The seams seemed to suck up the rubberized paint and after 2 coats I could see they were really sealed. There were some places that the sealing tape had already started to come up on. I applied a heavier coat over these and let the Plasti-Dip fill in the gaps. As per the instructions I let the painted areas dry and cure completely.

This all took very little time and my waders are definitely going to last me at least one more season.  I am tempted when I purchase my next set of waders to go ahead and preemptively spray the seams. For whatever reason the sealing tape glue isn't nearly as good as this stuff is when it comes to making a very smooth and adherent seal.

Plasti-Dip rocks for these kinds of repairs and their website shows that it can be used in lots of interesting ways on other items. It is strong, rubberized and seals watertight.  I am happy with the results and will be looking at other products put out by this company.  I am ready to hit the water again and won't have wet socks to contend with. I hope that you find this hack very helpful.  

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