Bicycle Tube Patch Repurposed into Shoe Patch

I never had much luck with "old school" bike tube patches.  By old school I mean the patch kits that came with a small tube of glue to get the black patches with orange surrounding border to stick.  I am a big fan of what I consider to be the new and improved "sticker" patches that you just peel off and apply. 

Although I have found the sticker patches to be more effective on bike tires, they would certainly  not make the grade in the style department if repurposed as a shoe patch, as demonstrated by reader Zlatan.  Have you repurposed bike tire patches?  Let us know so we can post!

Comments

[Robb]

I've had the exact opposite experience. glue patches are reliable, stickers patches fail (0 for 2 on stickers).

if you ever need to patch the sole of a shoe, check out a product called Shoe Goo. It has given a second life to several pairs of shoes for the cost of a $4 tube of the stuff.

[TurbineBlade]

+1 to Robb here. I hate those sticker patches, which are FAR more failure prone than traditional patches. So long as you smear the glue over a clean area of tube LARGER than the patch, and you LET THE GLUE DRY a patch is basically a permanent part of the tire. No problems at all.

That said, your hack is pretty cool ;).

[Darren Cripps]

I prefer the self adhesive ones - found the Park ones and Scabs to be reliable.

Not a big fan of the glue-ons. Especially when they stick the tube to the inside of the tyre....

[Loki]

I've had both positive and negative experience with the vulcanizing patch kits, and no experiences with sticker ones. I found that the key to using the vulcanizing ones is to spread the glue out over a larger area than the patch occupies (I'd imaging doing it exactly the same size would also work, but larger is a little bit more fool proof.) I've heard that most sticker patch kits don't work, with the exception of the Park brand ones which are a little on the pricey side.

[TurbineBlade]

+2 on the "spreading the glue to a larger size than the patch" on the traditional vulcanizing patches.

This really isn't up for debate here -- the vulcanizing patches by far out-perform the new, crappy stick on patches. Even the manufactures don't recommend them for high psi tires/tubes -- because they don't hold up as well under the stress.

Lennard Zinn also writes about them a bit in his repair guides.

-- Just don't want anyone reading here to get the wrong idea.

[Lou]

Like 20+ years ago I would get scuff marks on my sneakers from ollies on my skateboard. I would take an old bike tire and make a large patch and use shoe goo to adhere it over my sneakers. It kind of looked cool, in a punk teenager way. and the rubber did not wear down as fast as my shoes did.