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Re: Strut Valve on my Wainman

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:07 pm
by pixelpedro
GregK wrote:read viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2379180 through to the end, there's so advice about this near the end of that thread.
I'll check it out, tnx.
Erlend M B wrote:Don't worry. It's not permanent. I forget them all the time. After a while, the valve is back to normal.
Cool! what do you do in the meantime? cause I tries holding it down with my finger really quick, pinching the valve a bit, I wasn't fast enough for neither, so I gave up, and used another kite.

Re: Strut Valve on my Wainman

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 4:04 pm
by pixelpedro
KYLakeKiter wrote:I have had the same problem with my Starkites. You leave the plastic stick in and it deforms the flapper in the valve. Mine got better after inflating them while it was warm and letting the air pressure push back against the flap while the rubber is warmer. I would say above 80 degrees. Sounds crazy but it worked for me. Good luck. I understand how frusterating this is.
dude! you're a freaking genius, I applied some very light heat with a heat gun and a funnel, pumped some air in, and voila! finxed! Holding so far.

Tnx for the observation.

Re: Strut Valve on my Wainman

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 7:02 pm
by TheJoe
pixelpedro wrote:
KYLakeKiter wrote:I have had the same problem with my Starkites. You leave the plastic stick in and it deforms the flapper in the valve. Mine got better after inflating them while it was warm and letting the air pressure push back against the flap while the rubber is warmer. I would say above 80 degrees. Sounds crazy but it worked for me. Good luck. I understand how frusterating this is.
dude! you're a freaking genius, I applied some very light heat with a heat gun and a funnel, pumped some air in, and voila! finxed! Holding so far.

Tnx for the observation.
I did the same thing with my Wainmans a time or two. You don't have to do anything fancy to fix it. All you have to do is pump them up really hard and the back pressure will force it closed.

Re: Strut Valve on my Wainman

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 3:21 am
by pdb1121
I had similiar problems where the ball would get stuck on all my Smoke 2.0 valves. I just pumped it up really tight and they worked. Unfortunately I created a small leak in a valve fighting it before I found this thread.

Re: Strut Valve on my Wainman

Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:57 pm
by pdb1121
Final (I hope) lessons learned.

Thought I'd share my experience in case it helps anyone. I haven't heard of anyone else having exactly my problems, but you never know.

I was having problems with the stopper valves on my Smoke. The company kept giving me advice about the old flapper style valves and bragging on their new style valves, but the new style is what I have.

New valves consist of a bunch of holes in the bladder itself. Then the valve is glued on, centered on the hole, and contains the stopper ball. Finally, over the valve is a donut piece of plastic that is "welded" to the bladder outside the perimeter of the valve.

First problem I was having was the ball kept getting stuck in-between the bladder material and the valve perimeter. I learned that if you just pump the hell out of the thing, the pressure would (usually) pop that ball into place.

The other lesson I learned was that ball being stuck in there, and the subsequent dorking around to fix it, tends to cause problems with the valve glue job. I had to steam it, remove the valve, clean it up and re-glue.

Now re-glueing the valve under the donut is a royal pain. It ended up a not so graceful installation. Wrestling match, actually. My fingers were covered in glue for days. The bladder itself was glued together in oh-so-many places. I was able to peel apart most the places where the bladder was folded together, glued to itself. I didn't get them all and it looked ugly as can be. I figured it would never work, but it's flown a couple of times for me and not had any problem. I'm hoping it will get me through a trip to Maui next month, but at least when I'm there I can probably score a replacement bladder...unlike where I live.

Oh, and the final moral of the story is after all the glue debacle, I looked on the counter and saw the stopper ball. Now I just do it old school, pumping, coving with my finger and switching to the valve plug as fast as possible. Works ok as it's the leading edge, but I'd worry a bladder would lose too much air too quick.

Anyone else have problems with the new Wainmans? I bought a barely used demo version. maybe it was one of the first. Maybe the bladder tech was just having a bad day. Maybe I was doing something wrong.

Re: Strut Valve on my Wainman

Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 2:06 am
by kungfupete
Erlend M B wrote:Don't worry. It's not permanent. I forget them all the time. After a while, the valve is back to normal.
Me too. Just keep pumping air into the valve and it starts to release less air each time you remove the pump. I've had to pinch the valve before inserting the plug. But eventually it fixes its self.