What you'll need:

• Adhesive
• Adhesive Dish
• Applicator
• Roller
• Paper

You can purchase adhesive from us here: Solvent based Ammonia Based. Cheap tupperwear dishes from any grocery store work well as dishes to hold your adhesive. Old credit cards are perfect for applicators. Home depot and similar stores sell rollers - check in the carpeting department.

Types of adhesive

We sell two types of adhesive: ammonia based and solvent based. The differences between the two are that the solvent based ahesive will cause the latex to curl upon initial application. The thinner the latex the greater amount of curling you may encounter. If you are just starting out, we recommend using a .40mm guage thickness or thicker, as it can be difficult to deal with the curling for someone new to latex.

The Ammonia based adhesive will not cause the latex to curl, but it may deterioate if submerged in water for a length of time. Also, you can unpeel your latex seam and re-adhere with the solvent based adhesive without having to apply an additional coat of adhesive, but with the ammonia based you must reapply glue whenever you want to unpeel a seam and re-adhere.

Step 1: Apply the glue

Place a piece of paper underneath your sheeting to keep your workspace from getting glue on it. Next pour some adhesive into a dish and close the lid to your adhesive. You want to keep the lid closed as much as possible to prevent the adhesive from drying out.

Dip your plastic applicator into the adhesive. Apply an even coating of adhesive to your latex. You want to create a straight line of glue slightly more than 1/4 of an inch in width. Do not apply a thick coating of glue - the less the better, just make sure to get an even coating across the entire seam.

Make sure to coat both sides of the seam that you will be adhering. The glue will adhere to the sheeting, then when you bring both sides of the seam together, the top layer of the glue will bond to the other top layer of glue - thus it is necessary to coat both peices. If you experience curling, wait a few minutes until the glue gets tacky and the curling relaxes a bit. You can gently manipulate the curl if necessary. Don't worry, you don't need to be in a rush to put the pieces together - you could probably wait a max of 10 minutes and still be fine.

Step 2: Attach the seam

Pick up one side of the seam and very carefully attach about a 1/2 inch point to the other seam. Line them up perfectly. When you do this pull the top layer back over your hand so that it's not touching the bottom layer. See the video for clarification.

Very slowly and carefully start adhering the top layer to the bottom layer using a rolling motion of your finger. With practice you will find that you can manipulate the width of the seam by either "pushing" or "pulling" against the top layer of latex as you roll your finger. For now, just focus on keeping the seam width a consistent width the entire way down the seam. Also, you do not need to press very hard with your finger - just enough pressure to touch the two layers together - you'll apply force with the roller at the end.

The most important thing is not to stretch the top layer as you bring the two pieces together. We recommend cutting two pieces of sheeting that are equal in length - like 12 inches - and practice gluing them together, making sure that at the end of the seam the ends match up and you haven't stretched the top layer. You'll find "ripples" or a wavey like appearance in your seam if you stretch one layer of the seam as you adhere them together.

Remember, these are just guidelines - there is no right or wrong way to adhere a seam. If you find an alternative method that works better, do it.

Step 3: Roll the seam

Alas - the hard part is over! Now, if you're happy with how your seam came out, take your roller and with strong pressure - for some people as much as you can muster - and roll across the seam diagonally. This serves two purposes: to encourage the glue to form a strong bond with the latex, and to force out any air bubbles that may have gotten into your seam during the process.

Step 4: Curing time

Besides bringing the two layers together, this is the hardest part :) It will take a minimum of 24 hours for your seam to cure completely. Try to avoid applying any stress to the seam for 1 day - then enjoy your new creation!

If you have any questions or comments please email them to: sales@mjtrends.com