RTV black and an air mattress

[UTfball68]

I might be behind the 8 ball on this one, but I was out at Oregon Inlet all last week camping. I usually just used a sleeping bag on the ground in my tent, well my back and ribs don't agree with that as much anymore, so the girlfriend grabbed an old air mattress she had lying around. As soon as I filled up the air mattress at the camp site, I noticed there were several cracks (in seams) and holes, and the thing was losing air almost as fast as I could fill it. Tucked away in my trusty tool box was some RTV black, and I figured before buying a mattress, I'd see what I could do. Well, half a tube of silicone and a few hours of cure time later, no more leaks. I didn't have to refill the mattress with air once over the course of the 5 night trip. It may not be the prettiest mattress now, and I surely didn't expect it to work as well as it did...figured it would last the first and in the morning I'd be buying another. So I figured I'd just pass along the tip if others haven't tried it, or get to their site late at night and only need it to work until the following day.

Edit...also worth noting, I'm 330lbs and the gf is 125lbs. To say the least, I was impressed it worked as well as it did with 450lbs on it every night.