We just bought a LifeCore Fitness home gym with rubber weights
(www.Lifecorefitness.com) and the smell/off-gassing from the weights
is horrible.  What could we seal the rubber weights with that would
eliminate the off-gassing and not cause the weights to stick together?

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Clarification of Question by tiffin-ga on 30 Nov 2005 10:07 PST

The folks at LifeCore said the weights are made from recycled rubber. 
The offered that sprinkling them with baby powder would help eliminate
the smell.  We are still concerned about the VOCs from the weights in
a fairly enclosed space.  (We can smell the weights on the third floor
of our apartment.)

Tiffin, 
This is just a free comment and not and "answer".
The rubber oder will lessen with time and this can be hastened by
keeping the weights in a warmer place.  There are also things that are
said to reduce or hide the smell (for autos and hunters), and also one
maker of rubber flooring seems to have spray.  Here are the sites.

http://www.autogeek.net/cleanairev.html
http://www.no-scents-at-all.com/odor-elimination-how-to.htm
http://listserv.repp.org/pipermail/greenbuilding/2001-March/021065.html

Baby powder?  I was wondering if wiping the weights with glyzerin
would help, but I don't know.  Oh, on a different question, someone
suggested cat box pellets to remove strong cooking odors from an
apartment.

I hope someone can give a more directed response.
Regards, Myoarin

You will not be able to do what you asked. The stink is in the bulk of
the rubber, and there is a lot of it inside. Even if you cook the gear
in a vat of boiling water for a long time, more of the stink will
start coming out from inside after a while.

Baby powder antidote is a 100% balooney.

You can try and put a huge thick shell layer (i.e. epoxy + fiberflass)
over - but this is not practical and would not work anyway. Not on
rubber weights.

So your choice is either return the stuff to the manufacturer for
being defective (it helps if you made the purchase with a credit card)
or live with it - and store your gear in a smelly shack outdoor.