Last Saturday I spent about 6 straight hours standing in a river. When I finally pulled my stocking foot chest waders off, I found that my right sock was pretty wet. That meant a pinhole leak in the stocking foot. This is that foam rubber looking neoprene stuff. I did the flashlight down the leg in a darkened room trick but couldn’t see anything. I also thought it was a very small hole since it took hours to get wet up to my ankle.
OK, I took an old Windex spray bottle and filled it up with a solution of dish soap and water. Then I took the hose for my shop vac and plugged it into the outlet hole (making it a blower instead of a sucker). I shoved the hose down the leg and grabbed the whole thing with one hand. When the shop vac is running, I could inflate the foot area of the wader leg with considerable pressure. Note: I didn’t clamp the whole thing down tight as I didn’t want to blow it up. Then I started to spray soapy water solution over the boot. Eventually I found two spots that were bubbling up. You couldn’t see any hole but it was there. This worked really slick!
After cleaning and drying I will apply some Aqua Seal to both sides and I should be back in business.
Rootski
