@jimbo5 Slime and what is arguably its most widely used successor - Flatout - are really best used as a preventative, not as a repair after the fact. You can try it but if you do I would not bother with Slime. Use FlatOut since it dries hard.
I used to do the baby powder thing - actually the old-school cyclist's trick is to use corn starch. Rub your hands in some and then rub your hands over the tube. Remember how some tubes come out of the box powdery? Doing this makes them like that, but over time whatever you use can cake inside the tire if you use more than a tiny bit. Since the sticking problem usually happens on the side of the road, find a pinch of dust or dirt - it can even be moist dirt - and rub that dirt over your freshly applied patch on the tube. That patch is the only sticky part of the tube so focus on that. Rub on the dirt, brush it off and get on with your repair and your ride. Do the dirt thing roadside and you can forget about the corn starch or the baby powder as a preventative.
FlatOut - specifically the Sportsman formula - has a 10-year in-tube life so it never dries out inside the tube. Back in the day, Slime was usable but Slime clogs a hole and usually does not dry. It leaves a mildly weepy hole that only leaks a teeny bit. You'll need to refill the tire occasionally. What I did when I was using it was let Slime patch a hole or three and then, when a free weekend rolled around, picked a morning to sit down in my own comfortable garage, permanently patched all the holes and repeated the process as time went by.
Flatout on the other hand dries to a hard nub and is a permanent fix. It also is rated to seal holes double the size of Slime, and based on what I have seen, you can believe it is at the very least a better, more evolved product. It is especially effective on lower-psi fat tires. Sure it adds rotational weight but frankly on a 20-30 mph fat tired electric-assist bike the performance difference is meaningless. Especially if it means the difference between dealing with flats or never caring about them for the life of the tire.
Kyle at Area 13 did a side-by-side with tire sealants, tested Flatout and Slime among others and his test was pretty definitive.
I have been told by Flatout that the garden equipment formula that Home Depot keeps in stock (and sells cheaper than you can get it at Amazon) has the same performance and viscosity as the Sportsman formula everyone is using on bikes.
You should never replace a tube that you can fix unless you just want to throw money at the bike. A cold-vulcanized patch is welded permanently to the tube, stronger than the original surface. If you blow fifteen bucks on a new tube every time you get a hole, just look at how much you would have had to spend over time looking at this pic. Notice also in that pic I have not removed the (rear) wheel. Pull one tire bead, pull out the tube, find the hole, patch, reverse the process to get it back together. Of course you should inspect the tread to find what made the hole. Since the tube is still in place the location of the hole you have to patch will tell you exactly where to look on the tire.
There are five patches visible here. This tube got up to 7 and then Hole #8 was adjacent to a seam - you can't patch those, so after 8 separate events I finally had an actual need to buy a tube. These are Rema Tip Top patches and the kits have always been the top patch product, unchanged for decades excepting an improvement in the little bit of sandpaper they include in the kit.
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