Propane? That's a good idea. You might also find your eyebrows across the street! I'd stick with the soapy water.

 

Soapy water takes a while, but just take it out to the driveway and do it. Also, if you've got an air compressor, it's pretty quick to blow that sucker up to a decent pressure that your leak will make LOTS of bubbles. I've found that the little rubber/latex patch kits work surprisingly well. Just make sure it's dry and not soapy before you apply the patch, etc.

Cheers, John

 

OK propane sounds like a " Hey Y'all, Watch this!" incident on the Darwin awards!

Let's think about the basics here...

Propane---highly flammable gas
Air mattress filled with Propane---a combustable tank full of highly flammable gas
Using a Troch to find the leak---burn through the combustible tank and into all that highly flammable gas

You'll find more than your eybrows across the street!

Stick with the soapy water! Please!

Unless you're into cheap thrills...then use Hydrogen!

 

whoops double post

 

Got a Jacuzzi? You could partially inflate it and submerge it a section at a time. You'll see the bubbles real quick.

Rick

 

Mike;
Hydrogen's a good idea!
NOS seems like it might be better than propane.
Propane's good to find a vac leak in a car, why not an air mattress?
They all sound like something I'd like to watch from a distance rather than try myself, though.
I will use my compressor to extra pressurize it to help find the leak, John. Just got to make sure I don't overdo it and pop any seams.
I was just thinking that there might be a good way I hadn't heard of to find a leak.
One guy said I could rig up a mic and run it through an amp to hear the leak. Sounds like it might work. Think I got rid of all my mics a while back though. Seems like professionals use sonic leak detection for water and gas piping leaks.
Thanks for all the input and comments,

 

Please, please , please if you do the propane thing make sure you set up a webcam and let us know the address and time to watch it. I've never watched a darwin event live.

If you have access to a pool it should only take a couple of minutes to find the hole.

Cheers, Rod

 

Originally posted by Mr. Viagra:
Got a Jacuzzi? You could partially inflate it and submerge it a section at a time. You'll see the bubbles real quick.

I did that in my bath tub because I couldn't get the soapy water thing to work. It took awhile, but I found it. It's quite buoyant, so hard to get much of it underwater at a time.

 

The propane won't be quite good enough. What you need to do is set up your oxy-acetalyne torch to a nice blue flame and then put it out by rubbing it on a piece of wood. Fill the mattress (trash bags work good too)with the resulting mixture. Then relight the torch and apply it to the mattress.
Voila! No more problem finding the leak.
Oh yeah, earplugs would be a good idea and eyebrows are over-rated. They grow back anyway.

d

 

My brother-in-law's already covered his pool.
The pigs are out behind the barn in the jacuzzi.
I don't think the wife'll go for me flooding her bathroom; I'm already using the dining room table ... too cold outside.
I think I'm about ready to sub this thing out, Don. Are you up for a demo of your technique? It sounds better than propane.
Think I'm gonna go with a little overpressure and some more soap and water.
Thanks for all the comments. Made for an enjoyable day.

 

Warmed up enough today to take it to the back patio and spent an hour soaping and watering and presurizing it. NO LUCK!
But it won't have the last laugh. A buddy of mine is into mixing up his own firecrackers and I'll bet he'll help me do the propane or a similar number on it.
I'm gonna be at "What Was That!" distance, tough.

 

Soap and water is'nt the best thing for finding small leaks. There are several commercial liquid leak detector kits available from industrial supply houses (McMaster Carr, MSC, Etc.) that work WAY BETTER than soapy water. Go to one of their web sites and do a search for Leak detector.

BTW if you do use the Propane do it at night for the full effect .

 

If I can get my buddy to do the propane thing, I'll try to get pics. The last one jumped me so bad with the concussion I don't think I could have gotten a pic.

 

I thought this was a joke?!?!

 

I WAS trying to find the mattress leak.
Some of the techniques mentioned were jokes.
The leak detection suggested by Smitty is probably the best one under the circumstances but we're talking about a $25 three year old air mattress so it's not worth the expense .... or the time I've put in on it either, for that matter.
My revenge depends on what my explosive oriented friends say.
One came back and said half oxygen and half acetylene would work better than propane to get my revenge on the mattress.
This is probably one of those things that come up on cold rainy days and will probably die a slow death ... or not!
Maybe a video camera would be better that a digital snapshot camera?

 

Just had a friend suggest spraying smoke alarm test smoke into the mattress and then pressurizing it to try to find the leak.
Anybody tried this?

 

Either that or put in same colored water and pressurize it.

 

....buy a new air mattress.

 

If you use propoane, may I suggest calling the paramedics ahead of time.

If you use hydrogen, again call ahead for the paramedics just in case you are able to catch the matress (hydrogen is a lighter than air gas so the matress it will float away)

If you use NOS, use the soapy water and your OK. NOS is not flamible, but will support combustion as an oxidizer.

If you use the soapy water, I think you have the best chance of both finding the leak and surviving the experiance.

For the record, I suggest the soapy water. Time consuming, yes, but safe also. Just my $0.02. HTH and good luck.

-SGC

 

Yeah, I already bought a new mattress but this is one of those "this SOB's not going to get the best of Me" things so I've gotten fixated on it and am either gonna fix it or blow it up.
I've done soapy water til I'm blue in the face. I think it's just too slow a leak to show up.
I thought about filling it with water but figured it'd be heck getting it out afterward. I may try it though. Seems like it oughta work.
Thanks for the suggestions,

 

I would go find a crew that works for your local natural gas company. They use a concentrated liquid soap that is made to find small leaks. Mix with water spay on let set for about 3-5 min and if you have a leak you will see what looks like foam where it is. Done this for 37 yrs checking to find gas leaks and bad welders. Worked for us.
good luck and have fun

 

If you do the hydrogen, let all of the people in Lakewood, NJ know about it. It will be a spectacular demonstration of the Hindenburg airship explosion that thier grandparents witnessed about 70 years ago. A vidio of it would be enjoyed by all of us here on the forum. I will thank you in advance because afterwards might not be possible. Barry