Joining foam pad sections

[Aaron D]

I’m looking for a convenient (and light) way to re-attach segments of Z-fold foam pads together. Something like webbing with velcro or snaps, or ???

My wife could use a little more insulation under her inflatable mattress. I’d like to add a Z-fold closed-cell foam pad (e.g. Nemo Switchback or Therm-a-Rest Z-Lite). If I split the Z-fold into 3-4 sections, they would double as sit pads for the whole family. But I want to fasten them back together for sleeping at night (3-4 sections loose seem guaranteed to slide around randomly overnight).

I could stitch webbing and velcro to the pad, but that seems tricky with the ridged / textured foam, and I wonder if the stitches might rip through the foam on the first use. There are some bits of advice about sewing non-textured CCF at thread 43025, but I suspect the textured pad might be more difficult.

Any suggestions or relevant experience?

[John S.]

Reusable zip ties? Someone used regular zip ties before but I see you want it to be taken apart every day. Another guy on reddit did use plastic snaps for thin evazote.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

I hiked the PCT with two pieces of CCF pad and I used sticky velcro. It stuck very well to the foam. It’s never coming off. The velcro held well and never came apart while I slept. There was a small overlap but it was not a bother at all.

[Aaron D]

Thanks Piper. I’ll try sticky-back velcro.

I had almost given up on sticky-back velcro after various uses in our sailboat; it seems the velcro is usually stronger than the adhesive and pulls one side or the other off the surface. But good to know that it adheres well to CCF.

[Author]

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