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Bladder ironing

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heinzbush
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Bladder ironing

Postby heinzbush » Sun Aug 18, 2013 10:44 pm

Hi All,

not sure if this should go into the "repair tipps & tricks" post, but its not trick, I do have a question:

My bladder burst at the end along the seam...
I read in the above mentioned post that I should heat up the iron to max, put a wet towel underneath the bladder and roll with the iron along the seam of the bladder to seal it.

Will the iron not stick to the bladder when it melts?

Also, I didn't think about the option of ironing before and used the big patch that was in the "kite fix session saver" kit that came with the kite. Can I still iron "on top of the patch"? I guess I wont be able to peel it off without causing further damage...

Thanks!

JGTR
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Re: Bladder ironing

Postby JGTR » Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:17 pm

I use a shiny magazine cover, fold it and put bladder inside then iron over the top. I don't have the iron on mac, about half way, do a practice piece first if possible.

Other was is I've used a wooden dowel approx 10mm in diameter, laid the bladder on top sandwiched between 2 tea towels then ironed it with iron on approx half.

Works fine on the end of bladders, not greatly successful in other areas

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edt
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Re: Bladder ironing

Postby edt » Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:55 pm

iron technique requires practice and skill to get the heat and pressure right. wax paper and a wooden dowel will keep the bladder from sticking to the iron. You'll have better success using a impulse sealer than an iron. I could never get the heat right. Either not enough and it wouldn't bond or too much and I melted holes. It's difficult to get that big patch to fix a burst bladder on the end. All those seams means it's hard to prevent a wrinkle from letting air thru, so if you can heat seal it, that's what you want to do. If you use the iron method I would suggest practicing on some old bladder first before you try it for real. Also don't use a wet towel at all.

murph68
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Re: Bladder ironing

Postby murph68 » Mon Aug 19, 2013 8:50 am

+1 for the glossy mag works a trick and no need for max heat half is fine. You'll be surprised how easy it is!

Murph.

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kjorn
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Re: Bladder ironing

Postby kjorn » Tue Aug 20, 2013 10:09 pm

You can get sheets of teflon baking parchment from Tesco (in the UK) for a quid. This works good.

If you have a hole it's easier to cut the bladder so you can flatten it out and repair the hole with a series of seams. Then re-seal the seams you cut open.


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