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Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

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TheJoe
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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby TheJoe » Thu Jul 04, 2013 5:24 am

Leaky valves? Zip ties just snug around them so they seal. Never leave your inflate valve plug in this stretches the nipple and causes air lose. All ways pull them out to prevent this.

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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby ivanl » Sat Aug 24, 2013 3:01 pm

Hello,

I am trying to fix my Naish Torch 2010 12m and need help. Does anybody know what's the length of the leading edge bridle where the 5th line attaches to the kite? Mine's broken and the loose part is missing.. I know people use North bars with Naish kites and the other way round so would it be the same length as on a North Vegas 12m?

Any help would be super appreciated!

Many thanks,
Ivan

P.s. I hope this is the correct place to post this!

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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby bay surfer » Sat Sep 07, 2013 3:49 am

leading cause of leading edge Blowing is the stitching coming out, most leading edges are double stitched so when you see the seperation of one of the stitching, get your waxed dental floss :idea: out and needle and get to work. push the bladder down. then stitch, loop on both sides each stitch . Your 15 min of simple mindless work will save you from putting your expensive kite in the trash.
Dental floss is high quality dacron thread.

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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby GregK » Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:36 am

bay surfer wrote: Dental floss is high quality dacron thread.
It's my understanding that the standard multifilament waxed ( and unwaxed ) dental floss is nylon not Dacron ( the trade name for DuPont's polyester ). Kites are stitched with sailmaker polyester thread, which is treated with UV stabilizers.

Hand-sewing a lock-stitch like a sewing machine makes with correct upper and lower thread tensions takes some practice. If serious about hand-stitching your kite's leading edge closure seam, get a hand-sewing awl and spare your fingers a bunch of needle jabs.

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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby bay surfer » Mon Jan 20, 2014 10:03 pm

Damn leading edge bladder twist by the inflation valves that you can never get out. Squirt some baby powder through the zipper, shake well, fixed.

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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby ronnie » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:55 pm

This is an idea I'm going to try out.

The key part is a Nobile stainless steel swivel which has a hole for a flagging line to pass through. I have drilled the hole out from 4mm to 6mm using cobalt drills and smoothed off the entrances to the hole.
The swivel worked OK for flagging to both front lines (although it wasn't that good at swivelling :roll: ), but to flag to one front line, you will have a line with connections going through the hole, so it needs to be bigger.

This is a Switch bar and at the top of the centrelines is a Slingshot Choad Ball. One front line connects to the top of the choad ball and the other connects to the white Slingshot Bungee Line through the choad ball.

The plan is to have a minimal sized replacement for a chickenloop below the bar. The front lines can be untwisted by twisting the top of the Nobile Swivel.
The Q/R is a Wichard.

The first and second pictures are of the Wichard reversed. The low friction ring is a Wichard FRX10 which has more meat on it for grinding than an Antal ring. It takes quite a lot of careful grinding to make the ring fit the Wichard. To operate the Wichard as a push away Q/R there is an 8mm screw ground down to fit and a couple of plastic balls ground down.
Attachments
wichardring.jpg
wichardopen.jpg
nobileswivel2.jpg
nobileswivel3.jpg
Last edited by ronnie on Sun Apr 06, 2014 12:14 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby Shazgrot » Sun Mar 16, 2014 12:44 am

Note: do not attempt to fix a seam leak with the patches intended for pin-hole leaks. It doesn't work, and it makes fixing the seam using volkswagner's ironing method (see below) much more difficult. Here was my experience with the iron method:
  • - I couldn't get the seam to weld together without melting the plastic onto the iron, so I used a wet cloth on both sides of the bladder material, not just the bottom (so iron never touches the plastic).
    - I used an old set of boxer shorts for the top cloth since that was the only thing I could find that was thin enough to work properly ( I would guess the top fabric was 0.020" thick). The bottom surface was a cloth-covered ironing board. If you don't have something compliant on the bottom, you won't get enough pressure along the length of the iron, since it has a slight curve to it.
    - Push as hard as you can on the seam with the edge of the iron. Thermoplastics won't bond without pressure.
    - Apply iron edge for about 10 seconds to make the weld. You need to wait a few seconds after the hissing stops from the evaporated water, since the plastic won't melt until the water is gone at the contact point (250F melt temp > 220F boiling pt).
    - Wait ~30 seconds for the plastic to cool before you try to remove the top cloth, otherwise the bladder material will stick to the cloth.
volkswagner wrote:A method of repairing bladder blowouts that I have had success with is using a regular cloths iron.

-Heat up the iron to full temp.
-Place a WET cloth underneath the area to be seamed
-Make sure both sides of the plastic are COMPLETELY flat and ripple free.
-Then use the very edge of the iron and quickly press and roll the iron off the bladder.
-This will form an air tight seam line similar to factory.

I've used this to repair a seam blowout and to shorten my L.E. so that it doesn't stick out the ends of the kite. I don't know if it would work on the middle of a bladder. Be careful of ripples because the iron will melt through them leaving a hole. If the cloth isn't wet the plastic will melt into the cloth and it will likely tear when you go to separate them. GO SLOW and take your time for best results.


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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby kiteaid » Fri May 16, 2014 12:43 pm

Hi,
Blowouts can be fixed using KITEAID Bladder and valve kit.

The kiter in this picture used one kit to do the repair while on a boat in the Bahamas!
http://www.kiteaid.com/bladder-valve-repair-kit


The tricky part is to avoid wrinkles. Our bladder tape is re-positionable. Meaning, you can for a certain amount of time, peel it back from your bladder if you caused a wrinkle and reapply it.
NO OTHER PRODUCT ON THE MARKET CAN DO THIS :)

Best of luck!

Regards,

Stephan
Kiteaid Owner
Attachments
after_repair_infated.jpg

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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby gilana » Fri Aug 15, 2014 2:37 am

I have been using this stuff, its amazing, you can pull of and reposition but after rubbing down it sticks like crazy.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004BD ... UTF8&psc=1

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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby Gigi;) » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:24 am

Hi there,

the ironing is the best way to fix the bladder seam leak. Instead of we cloth just use baking paper ;)...

We also have our "old" RE-POSITIONABLE bladder patches still in stock. They are now replaced with TEAR-AID, but if somebody wants them just PM me ;).

Here are some useful video how-to's in bladder repairs ;)

Kite Bladder Blowout Repair



NOTICE: with 2014 we switched the bladder adhesive to TEAR-AID. With new adhesive additional patch edge gluing is generally not needed anymore (maybe only on really damaged or heavily talced bladders).


HOT-MELT Repair Tape - Kite Bladder Repair



Step by step procedures:

HOT-MELT BLADDER REPAIR (CLEAN CUT)

S1. Pre-sand the area with fine sanding paper
S2. Clean the sanded area with alcohol swabs and leave to air-dry
S3. Cut oversized piece of hot-melt patch and round the corners
S4. Place the patch over the tear (hot-melt side facing down!)
S5. Place heat shield over the patch and iron the patch for 3 - 5 seconds
S6. Remove air bubbles as much as possible after 1st phase
S7. Repeat ironing for 12 - 15 seconds, apply pressure


HOT-MELT BLADDER REPAIR (BLOWOUT)

S1. Cut off the wrinkled area (if any)
S2. Pre-sand the area with fine sanding paper
S3. Clean the sanded area with alcohol swabs and leave to air-dry
S4. Cut 2 oversized pieces of hot-melt patch and round the corners
S5. Place 1st patch inside the bladder (hot-melt side facing up!)
S6. Place 2nd patch over the tear (hot-melt side facing down!)
S7. Place heat shield over the patch and iron the patch for 3 - 5 seconds
S8. Remove air bubbles as much as possible after 1st phase
S9. Repeat ironing for 12 - 15 seconds, apply pressure


WARNING
Bladder must be well cleaned and dry at least in the ironing area from the inside and outside.
Dirt, sand or salt may damage the bladder when ironed if not properly cleaned!

TIP
You can even invisibly repair a small tears in the kite's canopy! The procedure is the same as fixing bladders, but iron the patch for 20-30s. Lay patch on the bottom side of the kite.


You can find more useful how to video manuals on our vimeo channel:

https://vimeo.com/drtuba/videos


:thumb: :bye:
Shazgrot wrote:Note: do not attempt to fix a seam leak with the patches intended for pin-hole leaks. It doesn't work, and it makes fixing the seam using volkswagner's ironing method (see below) much more difficult. Here was my experience with the iron method:
  • - I couldn't get the seam to weld together without melting the plastic onto the iron, so I used a wet cloth on both sides of the bladder material, not just the bottom (so iron never touches the plastic).
    - I used an old set of boxer shorts for the top cloth since that was the only thing I could find that was thin enough to work properly ( I would guess the top fabric was 0.020" thick). The bottom surface was a cloth-covered ironing board. If you don't have something compliant on the bottom, you won't get enough pressure along the length of the iron, since it has a slight curve to it.
    - Push as hard as you can on the seam with the edge of the iron. Thermoplastics won't bond without pressure.
    - Apply iron edge for about 10 seconds to make the weld. You need to wait a few seconds after the hissing stops from the evaporated water, since the plastic won't melt until the water is gone at the contact point (250F melt temp > 220F boiling pt).
    - Wait ~30 seconds for the plastic to cool before you try to remove the top cloth, otherwise the bladder material will stick to the cloth.
volkswagner wrote:A method of repairing bladder blowouts that I have had success with is using a regular cloths iron.

-Heat up the iron to full temp.
-Place a WET cloth underneath the area to be seamed
-Make sure both sides of the plastic are COMPLETELY flat and ripple free.
-Then use the very edge of the iron and quickly press and roll the iron off the bladder.
-This will form an air tight seam line similar to factory.

I've used this to repair a seam blowout and to shorten my L.E. so that it doesn't stick out the ends of the kite. I don't know if it would work on the middle of a bladder. Be careful of ripples because the iron will melt through them leaving a hole. If the cloth isn't wet the plastic will melt into the cloth and it will likely tear when you go to separate them. GO SLOW and take your time for best results.



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