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.bay surfer wrote: Dental floss is high quality dacron thread.
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.
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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