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Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

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

Postby spagi » Sat Oct 12, 2019 11:12 am

Hi all,
I have a question regarding my 2015 Dice. My left strut bladder is slowly losing air, but when I try to remove it and check where the leak is, I realize that it is attached to the strut itself and it wont come out.
I checked the other side and its the same story. I assume that this is by design. If this is the case, how can I remove or replace my strut bladder?
Looking forward hearing your response.
Spyridon

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

Postby GregK » Sun Oct 13, 2019 2:57 am

Have a look at the very front corner of the strut pockets - Duotone puts a thin white line tied to the front corner of the strut bladder that is fed through a small opening at the very front of the webbing that attaches the strut pocket to the LE pocket. This white string is tied to a small loop of webbing - you have to untie it before you can pull the strut bladder out.

Hard to spot these "strut bladder retaining ties" as the pretty close to the underside of the kite canopy and hidden by the front body of the strut when the kite is belly-up.

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

Postby Gigi;) » Sun Oct 13, 2019 7:40 am

Hello,

if it's not thin line in strut nose then it's valve retainer in the valve neck (it looks like circular cut in), which holds valve secured so that it can not drop into the strut. Take "minus" screwdriver and lift part of strut skin up above the valve neck, then do gentle 360deg turn to lift (push) the valve in. Do not push the screwdriwer deep as you may damage bladder.
spagi wrote:
Sat Oct 12, 2019 11:12 am
Hi all,
I have a question regarding my 2015 Dice. My left strut bladder is slowly losing air, but when I try to remove it and check where the leak is, I realize that it is attached to the strut itself and it wont come out.
I checked the other side and its the same story. I assume that this is by design. If this is the case, how can I remove or replace my strut bladder?
Looking forward hearing your response.
Spyridon

LL2017
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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby LL2017 » Tue Nov 05, 2019 5:47 pm

Is this something I could patch myself or would it need to be professionally repaired since its close to the strut? download/file.php?mode=view&id=90348
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Flyboy
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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby Flyboy » Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:37 pm

LL2017 wrote:
Tue Nov 05, 2019 5:47 pm
Is this something I could patch myself or would it need to be professionally repaired since its close to the strut? download/file.php?mode=view&id=90348
IMO: depends partly on how old/valuable the kite is. I think you could stick over the area with rip stop tape. Tricky to stick it down securely because of the proximity to the stitching. The worse case scenario is that it doesn't hold & tears some more & you're back to having it professionally repaired - it's not going to cost you any more to have larger tear repaired anyway. Duct tape would hold it too & probably be stronger stick than rip stop tape - could use white duct tape.
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nixmatters
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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby nixmatters » Wed Nov 06, 2019 7:18 am

LL2017 wrote:
Tue Nov 05, 2019 5:47 pm
Is this something I could patch myself or would it need to be professionally repaired since its close to the strut?
Wash the damaged area well, even better clean it with zipoo lighter fluid and tape both sides with spinnaker ripstop tape.
Try to stick the tape as close as possible to the stitches, but not over.
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Johnnyrotten204
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Re: Tips and Tricks to Repair Kites - add your experience!

Postby Johnnyrotten204 » Fri Nov 15, 2019 3:00 am

2017 Naish Torque loop repair:

I replaced my trimline on my 2017/2018 Naish Torque ATB system. I attached pics of the system if anyone else finds themselves in the same boat as me...

If you try to take the torque loop apart, you stand a very good chance that the screws will strip- They're well torqued, and have a small head. I've maintained my bars well, mostly used them in fresh water and they still seized.

2/4 (2 separate bars) screws seized onto the torque loop. Tried my screw extractor with no luck.

What I did was just drill the heads off and remove the cap. Once I got the cap off I jimmied the piece apart and took a set of blunt nose pliers to the shaft of the screw that was left over (either on the top side or below). I did minor damage to the plastic bit while wedging it apart, but I'm just getting longer screws to replace it. Current screw is an M3x.5x6mm with a custom head.

I'm replacing with M3x.5x8mm cap screws with a torx head. Head diameter is 5.5 mm, if you try regular sized head, it won't fit into the cap cover screw hole.

If you keep the screws on and try to thread the trim rope through the torque loop, I don't think it's gonna happen- there's thicker rope (they've added plastic 'wiring' on the one side of the torque loop, and a larks head on the other side.

Black piece is metal and the holes are threaded for the screw. Plastic pieces are grey and non-threaded.
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IMG_20191114_195420.jpg
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IMG_20191114_195517.jpg

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

Postby OzBungy » Mon Feb 03, 2020 12:35 am

I found a small tear in the canopy of my kite. I snipped the sticky ends off a waterproof tough bandaid and patched it using the ends the same as repair tape. The repair was done over 100 hours of use ago.

I left it on because I like the idea of having a mongrel kite that can take a beating and keep going.

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

Postby BillyGoatGruff » Wed Feb 12, 2020 5:40 pm

For naish bar you need a “torx 10” head fitting on a screw driver, they are designed to be taken apart and outback together.... never ever drill the head off! Please!

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

Postby Johnnyrotten204 » Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:06 pm

BillyGoatGruff wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 5:40 pm
For naish bar you need a “torx 10” head fitting on a screw driver, they are designed to be taken apart and outback together.... never ever drill the head off! Please!
The 2017 bars didn't have torx heads screws (not sure about other years), so they tended to get stripped.


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