Sorry if you’ve seen this before as it was posted a few months ago. Rather than heating up those welded valves and trying to pull them away from the bladder I followed this You Tube guy’s advice. Used a stick-on valve and it was easy, even for a first timer...

A friend tried valve traps and u stick valves and they all failed within 2 months.
Stormsure glue and aquaseal work well.

Hi Peeps,

Please don't do your own repairs with glue. We get kites in the store EVERYDAY needing replacement valves. It is quick, effective and cheap for us to do long term repairs to your kite rather than try and stuff around fixing the mess some customers make of their kites and then doing a repair.

We had a customer bring a 2nd hand kite in that had the valves all replaced by "someone" prior to sale. They had done a really poor job and many leaked requiring the replacement of at least 4 additional valves.

Please question how much you are going to save by doing it yourselves. I know a few have had success with glue, but in our experience, there are many, many more failures than there are successes and the repairs to the "repairs" are much more costly and time consuming as we have to remove all the glue residue or cut out the effected area altogether to facilitate a good clean reliable repair.

We use U-Stick, G-Stick and Kitefix. All are good but G-Stick are cheaper. There was a batch problem a while ago with G-Stick, but no issue since then and none of our repairs have failed.

If you are anywhere near a good shop, just drop it in and have the kite sorted professionally. We guarantee our bladder work unconditionally. We have so much experience in repairing bladders, from falling off valves, to pinholes invisible to the naked eye, to catastrophic leading edge failure bladder damage.

DM

I seriously don't understand why you wouldn't just replace the bladder, the amount of time spent re-gluing and hoping it will work.
A pin hole I can kind of understand or one leaking valve but replacing all valves, far out.... what a waste of time!

suniboy21 said..
I seriously don't understand why you wouldn't just replace the bladder, the amount of time spent re-gluing and hoping it will work.
A pin hole I can kind of understand or one leaking valve but replacing all valves, far out.... what a waste of time!

Not all kites have spare bladders available, especially older kites. Besides, a full bladder kit can cost over $300 not incl freight!

i usually just yell really loud and make threatening gestures, then throw a few good solid kicks into the LE. works a treat most of the time !!if problem still persist, resort to going home and kicking the dog instead!VOILA ! *****

Ragzilla said..
i got a kite repaired by MOTI LEVY earlier this year. he does bladder repairs. his claim is any tear or blow out can be repaired. anybody know how they do this?would it be a patch ?or would they cut out the damaged section and mould / melt a new section in its place?i have a mint condition kite ( except for the torn bladder of course ) , would like to get it repaired for the misses, but this bladder looks like its been minced in a blender. i can't imagine a patch can fix it. perhaps it would hold for 1 season, but i can't imagine it would be a permanent fix.curious to know exactly how it can be a guarantee fix ?yes, i have enquired about a new bladder, but its a 2008 AIRUSH FLOW. good luck finding one of those. its just a damb shame to see an immaculate kite sitting round with no bladder.

You have two choices IMO. Send it to Moti or replace the bladder from another brand. Check on ebay, as there is a guy there sells bladders and LE kits all the time, but expect to pay around $200 for an entire kit.
You could try and repair it, but you'll need another old bladder to destroy by cutting a big enough patch and gluing it on. Aquaseal is the glue you need.

best glue for bladder and valve repair :Sikaflex 291 or 292. They are both polyurethane glue, bladder are in urethane. I repaired a lot of valve and never had to do it twice

it's not the sikaflex you will find in bunnings (11FC) the 291 and 292 are marine grade skiaflex (I'm not working for sikaflex hahaha)

I used 3M 5200 Fast Cure and also Aquaseal with good success rates but still have some valve failures occassionally. A friend from the boat industry gave me some glue which contains Polyurethane and M. E. K. (Methyl Ethyl Ketone, an industrial solvent). This glue works even better than 3M 5200 and Aquaseal. However, it is highly flammable and the vapor is slightly irratating to the eyes and the nose.

I have a 2010 North Rebel that started leaking the other day, so removed the bladder and found valves peeling off. I carefully peeled them off and thought about how they are made, and came to the conclusion that their engineering is not quite right! When inflated, there is tremendous force on a valve, so I thought, why not mount valve from the INSIDE. I just stretched the hole slightly and placed the valve inside withe the flange area pushing up on the inside of the bladder, and using suitable glue, found that I had a really strong, air tight join. Hasn't leaked yet in my mind seemed such a simple solution!

Loftywinds, in the pics, this was a trial run on a old valve and bladder. You do not need to invert the bladder which would be impossible without cutting it. I just put a generous amount of glue on the TOP of the valve flange , and while stretching the bladder hole with your fingers, place the valve in there and then pull the valve UP. Place on a hard surface and clamp as per the video above. The glue that I use is similar to the wetsuit repair glues and is very compatible with valve and bladder material. The Bostik glue also sets very quickly, but remains flexible. Although I haven't tried this, I would think that it would be possible to pressurize the bladder while the glue is curing and this would force the valve flange up against the inside of the bladder to make a perfect join. Sorry, I don't have a video as the bladder is back in the kite and is sitting in my garage fully pumped up and it has not lost any pressure, after two days, so I'm happy! This method of repair may also work with stick on valves, where the bladder has been damaged by a unsuccessful glue fix to the outside of the bladder. The inside of the bladder should still be clean, and glue would need to be applied to the top of the valve flange, and the peel off covering left ON, so that it doesn't stick to the opposite side of the bladder.