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Foil kite leading edge repair

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direnc
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Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby direnc » Sat Sep 25, 2021 3:22 pm

Hi I have a loaner 15m Chrono V2. Checked it and it has some tears along leading edge battens. Some have some repair attempts with tape, does not seem to hold any more.

What is the proper way to fix this? And what is a practical temporary fix? Will some tearaid be enough of a fix?
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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby Jyoder » Sat Sep 25, 2021 4:06 pm

Take off tape, clean with alcohol, and retape it.

Cost to sew it up is probably prohibitive.

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edt
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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby edt » Sat Sep 25, 2021 4:52 pm

what? That's a tiny patch get out your sewing needle and hand sew it so you don't have to open any seams. Tape it first tho, use the lightest fabric tape you have

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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby Jyoder » Sat Sep 25, 2021 7:43 pm

edt wrote:
Sat Sep 25, 2021 4:52 pm
what? That's a tiny patch get out your sewing needle and hand sew it so you don't have to open any seams. Tape it first tho, use the lightest fabric tape you have
Doh, you’re right. I’m so used to using sewing machine I’d forgotten hand sewing was an option. 😂

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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby OzBungy » Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:05 am

It's fixable but it can be difficult to sew around the curve of the LE. It's not exactly difficult but it takes a lot of patience and preparation. It's far easier to do it properly than to do a half-assed job of it.

Open the trailing edge and pull the cell/s through. You might have to roll the kite from the tips to the middle so you can properly invert at the damaged cell.

Inspect the structure and work out what you have to unpick. You might have to unpick a fair way down the cell seams to get it open enough to sew. It depends on how it sits on your sewing machine. Rule 1 of repairing foils is you have to unpick more than you think. It's generally easy to resew cells because it's a straight stitch.

You might want to draw some way point marks to help you realign all the bits and pieces. Take some care with diagonals and tension strips and stuff.

Unpick, tape the torn bit, sew it up again.

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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby direnc » Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:12 am

Thank you all for your suggestions. Since the kite is not mine, I'll go with tearaid as a temporary fix.

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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby Herman » Mon Sep 27, 2021 12:46 pm

Regarding a temporary repair which involves taping over a seam similar to above, without stitching:

Has anybody got an opinion on which would stay on longest between Tearaid and a good Spinaker tape?

(Not bothering about stretch qualities etc….)

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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby edt » Mon Sep 27, 2021 1:00 pm

Tear aid is a little bit stickier but it's so much weaker. The most important thing is make sure the surface is completely clean and dry
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OzBungy
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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby OzBungy » Thu Sep 30, 2021 3:08 am

I'd go for spinakker tape. You might try and get a bottle or something inside the leading edge so you have a form to smooth the tape onto.

I like to heat the tape when it's in position to set the glue. A hair dryer works ok. My favourite is a bottle filled with hot water and used as a roller or iron. A plastic bottle would have some flex to press into the shape of the leading edge.

Put a smaller patch on the inside. That's mainly to seal the repair and covering the back side of the tape. A smaller patch avoids the edges of the patches lining up and making a hard edge.

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Re: Foil kite leading edge repair

Postby Herman » Thu Sep 30, 2021 9:04 am

Hairdryer and small wallpaper roller works well. OzBungy seems to be on the money. Repaired a small trainer a few weeks ago with tear aid on the inside and spinnaker tape on the outside and that seems to be holding up for now. In my experience, spinnaker tape repairs on LEI can last for years if just flat material but don’t last any where near as well if over a seam. Probably depends on type of cloth coating as well, not sure about the effect of newer silicon based sailcloth coatings.

Don’t forget to round the corners….


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