Shortening my therm a rest

[DiDaDunlop]

Hello,

as a first post I will start with a question...
Last night as I lay in my tent during a S24O I thought that I could make my matress somewhat lighter.

At the moment I have a thermarest prolite 4 regular. Most of the time I use it folded in two (yeah I like the comfort around my shoulders and hips). But what if I bought a thicker matress (something like the womens prolite plus) and cut off the bottom part. Less weight and thicker where I need it.

With some industrial glue and pieces of wood/nuts and bolts it would be possible to make a jig for sealing the matress.

Is the above feasible? Has anybody tried it?

[ScottM]

DaveC on here just recently did this.

Roll back through his blog a dozen or so posts:

http://bedrockandparadox.blogspot.com/

He can tell you more next time he checks in here....

[DiDaDunlop]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll get in touch with him.

My plan was/is:

1. getting jiggy with some sharp scissors
2. pulling some foam out of it (enough to make a flap and fold one side around)
3. Glueing the flaps (and making a tight connection using some wood and screw tighteners)
4. Stichting the flap for extra strenght

Seam sealing the edges/stitches is something that I forgot. Definetly necessary here.

[DaveC]

I first tried cutting, removing the foam near the edges (some kind of solvent like alcohol is useful for this), and resealing with an iron.  This was not consistent enough to work.  The project languished until Eric P. gave me some beta and I used the technique mentioned. 

I try to have as little overlap of the flaps as possible.  Do a whipstitch, and apply MANY thin layers of aquaseal or seamgrip.  Gluing before stitching would just create more problems. 

Patience (letting the layers and layers of sealant dry) is crucial.  And you might kill your mattress.

[Eric]

Its not that hard really, just takes some time, I fixed mine out in the boonies with aquaseal and dental floss.
have the bottom overlap the top just a tad, pluck out as much foam as possible, whip stitch or use a sewing machine to sew the seam so that the "end" is the folded overlap part and the "open" part of the seam is in the depression for lack of a better explanation. Use alcohol, cotol accelerant and aquaseal. check for leaks in a bucket or bathtub. re-glue...
basically what Dave said... good blog post Dave