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All the stick on sail repair materials I tried peeled, insignia, spinnaker, dacron, ripstop tapes. I think you really have to sew them if you want it to last more than a few sessions. Tear Aid didnt try.

Tip: Send to airtime.

Clean the area to be repaired with the alcohol of your choice. I have used Shellite and methylated spirits. I am told vodka works.

Round the corners of any stick on patches so there are no corners that will peel off easily.

Stitching down the edges of the patch stops it lifting and getting sand stuck to it. A domestic sewing machine will work fine for most sail repairs but will not handle closing a thick leading edge seam.

Don't be afraid to hand sew things. Just take your time and do very neat stitches and you can end up with a really good result.

You can usually beg or buy the end of a spool of bonded polyester thread from a sail maker. It has UV inhibiters so it will last much longer. If you can't get that then polyester uphostery thread is good. Don't use nylon, it's too slippery.

You can use dental floss in an emergency but polyester is by far the best thread.

Better to sew down tape... so it doesn't peel on larger repairs and sewing Leading Edges is basically a must do to pressure... I'm a fan of clear canopy repairs.

Here is a tip for the thick minded such as myself.

After spending a day repairing all the valves on your kite bladders because you left your kites in the car too long.......

Don't leave one end of the bladder sticking out because you want to inflate it a little to make sure there are no twists in it.

When you do this ( and forget that end is sticking out) and start to inflate the kite to normal pressure, you are only going to achieve about 2psi before that end that was sticking out ( & must have swollen like a pregnant hamster on steroids), explodes with a very sharp "POP".
This "POP" will remind you that you are indeed an idiot and forgot that A) its sticking out and B) you were only going to inflate the kite a little bit.

Remedy....

If the tear was not too long, its "possible" to repair it providing you have some length left.
I have repaired it by glueing the bladder across the end before the tear as the tear was about 3 inches long.
Then roll the bladder up to that point and finish with a small cable tie to ensure a good seal.
Thankfully the bladder ends are longer than the kite and should have suffiecient length so that it will inflate against the inside of the kite and not be too short and pop again.

I can't say this "will work" as I have not had the balls to inflate it though the repair looks like it will hold.

HA

Now to do the same thing to the 17.5 machine with out the " blowing the bladder to pieces" finish.

Done some big canopy repairs and they have worked well. Spinnaker tape and sew.

I'm thinking about doing a major leading edge repair (see pcture). Any advice for how to go about it? I know that you need to open the main front seam first, and that any tape work must be sewn.

The main question is whether it is enough to join the torn edges together with dacron insignia cloth on each side, or whether you need to use a thicker bit of dacron on one side (inside?), fixed with double sided tape and then sewn.

Any leading edge repair experts out there?

The repair I made to my last post worked.

YAY.

HA

Hi merl ,

This can be fix , with Kitefix.com , Fiber fix and glue fix, Where you are ? . If you are in Canada or USA , we maybe can help you . ?

Send me a reply in my email : info@kiteriding.com with the image of you broken kite.

Aloha Wave

Tear-Aid is pretty hard to peel off...nah, REALLY hard

Just did a 3 foot canopy repair (LE to TE) with

fiberglass drywall tape
Some kind of 2-part epoxy from the hardware store (doesnt really matter so much as its strong and decently flexible)

same idea as Kitefix, just a hellofa lot easier to get your hands onto-tape then epoxy, scrape the epoxy thick enough to cover the threads in the tape.

Did it to both sides, might do one side over with the amazing tear-aid if I can get another 3 feet of it

I think Im just going to buy a 30 foot roll from them...

kiteriding wrote:Hi merl ,

This can be fix , with Kitefix.com , Fiber fix and glue fix, Where you are ? . If you are in Canada or USA , we maybe can help you . ?

Send me a reply in my email : info@kiteriding.com with the image of you broken kite.

Aloha Wave

I'm in Europe. The picture is in the post above. Even if this works with kitefix, this would surely look horrible. But please post pictures of kitefix repairs of major LE blowouts!

As for the suggestion of using epoxy - that sounds wild man!

It would be interesting to see what you do with it... LE's have allot of pressure and bend. Sewing is best I'd say.... This is a strut, but gives you an idea of sewing... but not everyone has a machine for do it yourself. Hope it works out...