Another Kite Repair - Leading Edge Blowout

Another Kite Repair - Leading Edge Blowout

Kite Repair - Leading Edge Blowout

We received another Blade kite with a leading edge blowout and got it back on the water for another happy customer! This one required quite a bit of stitching with the leading edge tear going up into the canopy.

Kite leading edge tear

Another carribean kiteboarding travel incident, where our client lent his kite to a friend who accidently blew up the leading edge of the kite in what must have been a spectacular kiteboarding crash!.  It looks like the kite's leading edge stitching ripped apart over more than 50% of the leading edge tubular structure and into the canopy.  Once the kite's seams let go, the quick loss of retention pressure must have caused the bladder to blow out as well. The leading edge kite bladder was a fairly straightforward fix, we even got to make use of the multi-nozzle attachment provided by WMFG pumps.  We had a handy nozzle for the max-flow valve.  (If you're looking for a WMFG tall pump just click here).

Kite Leading edge and canopy repair

For the leading edge and canopy repair, a whole lot of stitching had to be pulled and restitched with additional material to reinforce the now fairly heavily perforated dacron material.  Personally I've never been a fan of the coulourful 'fashion' layer as I call it on the leading edge of kites.  It adds a little bit of flashy colour but also adds a lot more needle holes that aren't necessary...plus it makes the repairs a bit more time consuming. Note the slight bulge in the seam is from the dacron repair tape.  Thinking about it, there are now technically four needle holes in the same dacron leading edge material, one for the factory leading edge stitch, a second for the factory 'fashion' layer, a third for the dacron leading edge repair, and now a fourth for the 'fashion' layer repair re-stitch. It is what it is, product design, sales, and marketing always end up making tradeoffs in kiteboarding and pretty much any other industry. We pressure tested the bladder to 8psi overnight and the kite was still a healthy 8 psi in the morning. Anyways were happy to get our client back kiteboarding with his Blade kite here in Canada or down in the Carribean!

 Kite leading edge repair

Have a repair contact us for a quote, or if it's time for that older kite's retirement check out our lineup of Eleveight Kites - performance and durability, we are really liking the build quality Eleveight has given to it's kites and boards.

Eleveight Kite Products from Shred Kiteboarding

 

 

 


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