Kitesurfing: Leading Edge Blowup Kite Repair

(experimental, ie do not follow)

My Flexifoil Ion3 9m blew up. To add insult to the injury it blew up on the beach, in my hands when I was inverting it to pack and go home. Darn! Looks terrible. I simply think it just got old and tried to quit on me. No such luck, buddy! The quitting I mean, not getting old.

So here is my attempted, DIYig (DIY in garage) revival report. Some things worked, some were messed up. I am yet to try to fly it...


The repair was a two step process: the bladder and the canopy. Since I am lazy by nature I decide not to pull out the bladder completely but just slide it out of the tip. This was possible since the damage was close to the tip.
So here it is, the bladder with a fist-size hole. They say, cut it open and glue a patch from the inside. I say no need to fix a hole by creating another hole.



I removed the air connection from only one strut and rolled the bladder so it does not get in the way.Then I used some sticks to stretch damage area.

I used a bigger-then-palm patch out of an old bladder and put it into the bladder through existing opening (technical term to describe a hole). Just made the patch way oversize so when glued with AquaSeal, the glue would not have a chance to glue the bladder's walls together. Here the black marks the edges of the patch (it's inside the balder). The glue already applied through the hole (I have cut out the original damaged area from the blown-out material).


I have also applied another patch from the outside. I have spread the glue to keep the edges of the outside patch glued to the bladder.

After 12 hours under load, the glue turned yellow. I have not used AquaSeal before so I have not idea if this is OK....It feels flexible and strong.

This is how it looks like cured.

Anyway, the only other problem was that there were small pockets of air left between the patches. But is this a problem really?

This part was relatively easy. The stitching required patience and a lot of ...
Here it is, the top seam opened to make more space for sewing. I had only a fairly thick dacron from my boating days. I have also used the double sided sewing tape 3/4" (the white strips already attached to the edges of the damage. I have decided to put a single band of dacron and sew it in.

In order to help with alignment I first applied a insignia cloth to the outside. This helps keeping the edges together and in good place.

Then I placed the dacron into the double sticky tape. The insignia cloth was a second take idea. I found that the sewing tape is not sticky enough to hold the edges together.

Sewing the seeds of love..ahem...adjusting my flaky walking foot machine is always a challenge, esp when I have not used it for a few years. She's got rusty, so did I.

Four rows of zig-zag from the edge to the edge. I had to rip it out only once when the sail cloth got sewn in. Only once I swear!
Then I got a brilliant idea to strengthen the cloth and put a spinnaker repair tape around the edges. Esthetic's got lost in the process (the tape is white).
But where did the bladder go? I dropped it rolled into the LE shoulder. Kept it nicely out of the way.

Sew him up, doc! I had to get the bladder out. Stretch it and somehow pray I will not sew it in while closing the leading edge.

Here, under (minor) pressure test....It worked!. Just royally miscalculated (read "screw up") one small detail. The edges got quite strong with extra spinnaker tape and with the dacron (see: it is nicely going all the way from edge to edge). But...unfortunately, the dacron I used way thicker then the original cloth and hence I could not fold it. Darn!  This made the repair downright ugly...

the good

This is plausible result. Kite survived nightly pressure test. and looks fine on the outside.

the bad and the ugly

Note the LE deformation. I suspect it could be a result of original damage and/or my sewing. It looks like the circumference is smaller in this area. Perhaps, I should redo the top seam. One day. Perhaps.

Oh, well. I only meant the repair as an experiment....I do not think I'd take it into waves anymore. But on flats or as a learning kite it is still OK.

Kitesurfing: Replacing a strut bladder with U-Stick orange bladders

Here is a story of a bladder (replacement) on an inflatable kite.

Twice-Broken valve

Recently, I had a failure in my Flexifoil 9m Atom3 after I left it simmering in the sun for several hours (at Rio Vista, CA.) After having an "interesting" session with half-deflated kite I was faced with a repair. The heat caused delamination of the strut valve from the bladder. I have had local repair shop repair it. They glued the valve back but the repair looked terribly (with some part of bladder glued together, ripped apart and left hangin and bladder folds). I have reinstalled it anyway and tested it overnight. It held the air. I did not go out for several days (no, the kite was no longer on the sun).

Next time I have inflated it on the beach the kite quickly lost lots of air. I discovered that although the glue held, the valve become cracked and it had a serious leak. Apparently the repair damaged the valve base. The damage looked like it was heat induced. I bet it was overheated during the repair (the valve is usually completely unglued by "coocking" it). So much for "professional" repair.

Orange and original bladders.

So, a full bladder replacement was in order: U-Stick orange bladder and valve. The Airtime Kite people were awesome. They quickly advice me what I should use. The strut valves, both on main and strut bladder are called "option" as you can choose different stems. Flexifoil has a 11mm valves with straight stems. There is also a "replacement" option valve which does not have "options" as it comes only with straight stem. Also, Airtime has nice on-line bladder selection tools. My kite needed 50cm bladder. The valves fit the opening in the kite and did not need rings. Ordering and shipment was a snap, thanks Airtime!

I followed instructions attached to the bladder and valve. However, there were few small surprises.

The 50cm bladder is visibly much bigger then the original Flexifoil one. Too big is OK as the kite will restrict the expansion, too small would be bad (too much stretch). The original bladder was also 50cm (just much smaller). 


The material is more brittle sounding (it sounds more like a "shopping bag" while Flexifoil's is more like "sex-rubber", if you know what I mean.) Just observing the visual difference which has nothing to do with other physical properties like strength. I just said "oh well it must work fine."

REALLY be careful when cutting the hole in the bladder for the valve. The bladder is completely air tight when shipped so pulling it apart is hard. Never thought that vacuum can be so hard :-)

Bladder prepared for surgery

When sticking the valve there were more surprises.

The bottom of the valve protrudes from the base so it is perhaps better to use soft surface to glue on, like a towel.

Bottom of stem protrudes beyond the base

It is hard to align it with the hole before the valve sides will start catching the bladder and when they do, it is over; perhaps a helper could stretch the bladder flat when you align the valve and stick it, mine cough bit early and got slightly misaligned with the cutout.

The valve glued to the bladder.

The diameter of the opening in the end of strut is so small that I had to bend the base of the valve to fit it in. Then I had to push it in through with some force. Needed to get a bit medieval with it, but it worked. The rest of the way was traveled with a "string attached."

Size matters?

The bladder is so much longer than the original even though I followed the instructions and folded top and bottom inside to match original length. I have folded it more so it flashed with the pocket.

Too long?

The valve is a bit shallower then the original so the pipe between main the strut seems too short and bends the new valve. I wonder how it's going to work long term?.

Too short stem?

So far so good, the kite flies and makes his owner smile. The replacement was $35, a mare $15 more then the "professional" repair that failed.


References:

• AirTime
• what to use to stick it back on (forum post) 
• KiteFix Peel2Fix system (double sided sticky tape)
• FixMyKite Valves and goodies.