Bob Minchin wrote:
Pete Verdon wrote:
I bought a VHF radio the other week for use in a boat. Unfortunately,
on its first outing it got bashed about to the extent that the battery
clip broke and the battery fell off and got flung around the bottom of
the boat for a while before I noticed. I normally take better care of
things, but it was a very bouncy day and I was having a hard enough
job staying in the boat myself. Despite the newness of the radio I
don't think it's worth going back to the supplier - it was a budget
range and the treatment it got probably exceeds fair wear and tear.

I'll be improvising some form of replacement clip, but I'm having
difficulty with the thin rubber seal that goes round the battery and
makes the radio watertight (supposed to be good 1m underwater for 30
minutes). It seems to have somehow stretched, so that when I put it
back into its groove there's always a little bulge of extra seal with
nowhere to put it.

Is there some cunning dodge to shrink this kind of seal slightly so
that it's a tight fit again? Failing that, is there any kind of thin
glue that's safe on this kind of rubber, so that if I ever do get it
all in place I can keep it there?

Cheers,

Pete
The trick is not to feed the seal in from a single point as the
widthwise squeezing pressure makes the seal longer. Put it in at one
point and then another halfway round then in the middle of the two
points and so on. It should all go back in then.

Bob

Th trick is to starve the seal completely, then beat its brains out with
a club, and gut it.

That way you get a very thin seal.