I had an experience yesterday to add to this "huh, that actually worked to fix a flat" thread. To preface I've been lax on keeping my supplies and equipment up to par (for example, my floor pump leaks air while I'm pumping, so I have to pump fast and get it disconnected fast, and my front tire is really starting to look rough and I've got it booted with newspaper that I got from the side of the road when I did a road-side flat-fix).

Yesterdays ride was approximately 6 miles out, turn around, and 6 miles back. I have often in-the-past carried an extra innner-tube but one wasn't handy (like I said I need to get myself together and be better prepared) and I knew the farthest I would have to walk is 6 miles and I had plenty of time and I figured I'd risk it (maybe I'm lacking excitement in my life and wanted to live "dangerously").

I had fixed a flat on-the-road a few weeks ago and at that time my glue was barely liquid, but it worked okay. Yesterday my flat happened about a mile and a half from home (on my way back). I thought about walking the last bit but I figured why not try to fix the flat and avoid the "walk-of-shame." This time what little glue was left in the tube (I rolled the tube like a tube of tooth past and I tore the tube apart to get access to what was left) was closer to a solid than a liquid, it rolled in my fingers like play-doh. I roughed-up the area around the tube-hole with my metal "sander" thingamagig and put a BB-size glue ball over the hole and put the patch on. I tested the patch a bit, it easily peeled back off, and the former glue-ball (now flat) pretty much stayed together (meaning it didn't really look like it was "trying" to bond to either the tube or the patch to any significant degree). It did stick enough to keep the patch in place and that was it. I really had no confidence in this "fix". I was able to pull some more glue out of the very end (from the area behind where the top screws on). I pried the glue out leaving shiny metal behind (like I said this glue was more solid than liquid). I mixed this glue ball with my original, which I easily able to retrieve from my original attempt at fixing the flat (there was a tiny bit of glue that "tried" to stay behind on the patch when I retrieved the original glue-ball). I ended up with a pea-size glue ball, I put it over the tube-hole and put the patch on top, I squeezed the patch onto the tube until "glue-doh" was showing coming out under the patch on all sides. I got the tube back into the tire just hoping that the patch would not be knocked off in the process. I got maybe 30-40 PSI in it (my frame pump is actually still working well) and it held and I slowly made my way home.

This make me think maybe even chewed chewing gum would work in a pinch (before yesterday I would have bet on the chewing gum over what I was using)

This glue came out of an "official" (though X-mart/cheap) bike patch-kit, but it looks very "generic," it reads "RUBBER CEMENT, FOR ALL RUBBER REPAIRS, the fine print on back read that it contains heptane and toluene which are apparently flammable and/or poisonous according to several warning sentences. The tube also reads Bell automotive products, inc.

I found similar looking tubes of glue for sale in the automotive section at Walmart last night. I bought a "Slime" (car) tire plug kit which contained a .41 OZ. tube that reads "RUBBER CEMENT" and contains heptane and petroleum distillate (the whole kit was $3.00). Unfortunately the tube in the kit has a hole in it and I will return the kit for another one. I am going to use the small tube in my bike repair kit and have the car-kit on hand to repair possible holes in my car tires, which I've never tried to do before, but have had done by a mechanic a couple of times in the past year. There was also the same glue being sold alone (not in a kit) in a tube about three times bigger (I'm guessing 1.5 OZ.) for around $1.88. I usually run out of glue before patches so this is good to know.