Warning: valve protection older North and Best kites

[Toby]

I've had this happen on a few BEST kites. I've fixed it with a tyre patch (and glue) with a hole punched in the middle, stuck on from the outside. Not very elegant because you can't really avoid the excess glue from being visible, but surprisingly, it seems to work, maybe two years now.

Sounds good, pls show some pictures!

[Pemba]

I've had this happen on a few BEST kites. I've fixed it with a tyre patch (and glue) with a hole punched in the middle, stuck on from the outside. Not very elegant because you can't really avoid the excess glue from being visible, but surprisingly, it seems to work, maybe two years now.

Sounds good, pls show some pictures!

[Toby]

Thx, that looks excellent!

[Topaz]

Looks good.

[Topaz]

Just got my kite back.

Told him about the above solution, he said it will also come loose at one point. So replacing them is quiet some work, but will last. Guess longer than the rest of the kite.
But, a quick and cheap solution if you don’t have another choice.

This cost me about 100 USD.

So if you have the same problem and going to Nrazil once day, make sure to have it made there or any other cheaper place.

This is how mine looks now:

[sarc]

I've had this happen on a few BEST kites. I've fixed it with a tyre patch (and glue) with a hole punched in the middle, stuck on from the outside. Not very elegant because you can't really avoid the excess glue from being visible, but surprisingly, it seems to work, maybe two years now.

@ pemba did you use aquaseal too? I got the tire repair patches but the tire repair cement does not stick to dacron. Let me know if any other glue than aquaseal works cheers!

[Pemba]

I've had this happen on a few BEST kites. I've fixed it with a tyre patch (and glue) with a hole punched in the middle, stuck on from the outside. Not very elegant because you can't really avoid the excess glue from being visible, but surprisingly, it seems to work, maybe two years now.

@ pemba did you use aquaseal too? I got the tire repair patches but the tire repair cement does not stick to dacron. Let me know if any other glue than aquaseal works cheers!

I use aquaseal (= PU right ?) for the bladders (valve on bladder). I've used other glues for this, they often last for up to a year or so, but PU is easily the best in my experience but seems to be supported on this forum. I was very surprised to see that the ordinary (?) tire glue did stick to dacron in my case.. I applied it to both sides (also to the vulcanizing patch), and probably two layers to the dacron.

[sarc]

I've had this happen on a few BEST kites. I've fixed it with a tyre patch (and glue) with a hole punched in the middle, stuck on from the outside. Not very elegant because you can't really avoid the excess glue from being visible, but surprisingly, it seems to work, maybe two years now.

@ pemba did you use aquaseal too? I got the tire repair patches but the tire repair cement does not stick to dacron. Let me know if any other glue than aquaseal works cheers!

I use aquaseal (= PU right ?) for the bladders (valve on bladder). I've used other glues for this, they often last for up to a year or so, but PU is easily the best in my experience but seems to be supported on this forum. I was very surprised to see that the ordinary (?) tire glue did stick to dacron in my case.. I applied it to both sides (also to the vulcanizing patch), and probably two layers to the dacron.

Thanks I was able to use aquaseal eventually, was pleasantly surprised that needed less than 1/2 tube for two 5-struct kites. I glued the tire repair patches on the inside of the leading edge without removing the bladder, the thinking being that it will be in compression instead of expansion if it was glued to the outside, and also that I would not need to buy clamps to apply pressure because pumping the kite to 9 PSI would put nice pressure evenly across the whole patch, and finally the glue would dry to the LE when it's expanded under pressure so it will be same conditions as during use. And I did not have to remove the LE bladder.

Gluing inside allowed me to NOT remove the old reinforcements, so I smeared the remaining brittle plastic outside the LE in Shoe Goo, it not only sticks well but should mechanically be joined to the plastic bits and therefore the sewing, adding extra strength.

[Topaz]

How soon did you pump up the kite after applying the glue? Are you sure you won't glue the bladder to the strut/LE with excess of glue coming out of the patch?

[sarc]

I pumped up as soon as finished setting the patches, maybe 20 minutes after applying the glue. Aquaseal becomes tacky around 15-20 minutes so seems to be OK. I let dry pumped up for 24 hours. I used oversized tire patches and applied glue on the inner rim of the old reinforcements using the handle of an ice cream spoon that I bent into a L-shape (1cm of glue with 2cm patch to spare), so in theory no glue should have reached the bladder. If it did, since the whole thing settled at 9 PSI I think there's good possibility that it will work fine under use (I pump to 7 PSI normally). We'll see!