Have been looking into restoration of my C.E.M. I know it is basically hopeless to restore pliability to the rubber, but I have heard of people taking good parts from several masks and piecing one good condition one together out of them. Anyone attempted this here, or would this be some major evil thing to do or something? How easy is it to find an atleast semi-pliable face piece?

And I have seen some rather unorthodox ways to restore the face piece for display. One person soaked it for a night in water, and it restored flexibility, but this sounds rather damaging to me. Been told heavy application of armor all could work. Already dried out, so not much to be lost.

The rubber inner liner is completely gone, is there something that can be done for the outer mask though?

My mask has a large rip in it, and no exhale flapper, so it is basically worth the $5 I paid for it. Any unorthodox treatments are worth a try.

Anything to repair the rip? I know repair kits were issued with these, but have never seen the contents of one. What would be a close modern approximation to the original repair materials?

And, one last thing for this questionnaire, repairing broken headstraps. Half the straps are destroyed, the rest on thier way. I imagine if I sew it up in one place, it will just rip in another. Anything can be put on it to restore a little strength to these straps?

I hate asking all these question. Never get much of an answer. Been searching for a good while on these questions, and haven't found very much useable information yet. Thanks.