Kite Repair Blog | WindFire Designs

Two tips completely ripped away from this North Rebel

2012-01-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

Ok, so, we love that we had before and after photos of this. We do a lot of kite repairs at this level, but often we miss having either the before or the after photos. This North Rebel inverted, and loaded up really hard. We imagine that it was like the way you eat a wedge of citrus fruit, by flipping it and pushing the guts out.

Anyway, wow! This one had both tips completely ripped away. The customer did a great job of keeping the pieces intact and because of this we were able to put this back together perfectly. The natural craziness of the graphics allowed us to really hide the repair well. Check back, we hope to get photos of this kite in flight.

If you ever do have fabric, or any piece of the bridle completely separated from a damaged kite, save every single shred. It's critical that we at least be able to copy these pieces even if they don't get re-included in the final repair.

North Rebel 11 Kite Repair by WindFire Designs

2011-02-25T11:52:00.001-08:00

This one was rebuilt for Jose Suarez in Miami. Thanks Jose!

Enjoy your restored kite. This one was very extensive with a destroyed wing tip and the strut having completely separated from the canopy.

paraglider repair

2010-12-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

Since we started doing kite repair we've also been getting a fair few paraglider repairs in. Now we do paraglider repair officially. Here is a pro designs wing with a lot of damage to a few cells. Most of the repairs can be completed internally. We used a very clever method to repair these right against the seams without having to disassemble the fabric. This preserves factory alignment and strength.

Extensive Leading Edge Rebuild on Best Waroo Kite

2010-12-01T07:42:00.000-08:00

This is among the largest repairs we do on leading edges. On Best Waroos, the leading edges are always pesky to work on because of the silver-colored webbing that is merely cosmetic used over the main leading edge closure seam. Any leading edge has to be sewn back together with absolute precision if it is to hold up to the pressure and use in the sky. Here we see that this entire section of leading edge needed to be rebuilt and the beige area is all patching added internally.

Cabrinha meets the rocks

2009-11-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

Wow, so this one was epic for lack of a better word. Nothing complicated, but it just kept going and going. Our customer said that he was in heavy surf and the kite came down and was pushed against a rock wall. There were rips everywhere. We thought this looked quite good after the sewing. Our grey and orange repairs fit right in with the colors.

cabrinha kite repair | we have this weird color

2009-11-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

So I bought this cloth wondering if we'd ever use it. Sure enough Cabrinha makes kites in this strange yellow.

Believe it or not, there was a rip down the middle of these three lines of stitching. This is the sort of alignment that we achieve on all our repairs.

Wainman Rabbit leading edge repair and shape test

2009-11-16T14:23:00.000-08:00

This repair runs the full length of this wide shot. Here we are just shape testing it with a new bladder. The seam blew out from the H over to the next junction. We had to rebuild both edges over that length.

Fancy repair of an Ocean Rodeo Kite

2009-10-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the sketch we made after we were done, this kite was messed up. I'm always amazed at how many simultaneous points of damage some kites come in with. This went back together really well though. The repairs are barely noticeable.

Another powered paraglider repair

2009-10-22T09:50:00.001-07:00

Recently we've been doing quite a few paraglider repairs. This one is a Dudek 27 meter. Apparently it was damaged because of the motor and prop. One cell needed to be completely rebuilt. All of our work was done internally so there was almost no change to the color of the wing.

Kite repair graphics

2009-06-29T18:55:00.001-07:00

Nothing too exciting, but I thought this one looked nice.

On the front side you can see the graphics line up really nicely and are preserved very well.

Best HP - classic over inflation

2009-06-29T18:17:00.001-07:00

This is a glimpse of the interior surface of the leading edge tube of a Best Waroo Pro HP. It has cuben fiber on the inside of the middle third of the leading edge. It's actually a great idea. The cuben is actually a pure spectra laminate that is simply amazing. I personally use it in many of our own kite designs. This is the main closure seam of the leading edge. It is perhaps the most important seam on the whole kite. It takes the most force and is often one of the first to fail. It's not because they are under-built. They are actually quite strong. It's just that the forces involved can be amazingly powerful, as any of you who have been lifted off the water know. This seam has signs that are classic of having been over-inflated. As you can see here the fibers have actually moved over and started to unweave. This was not evident until I opened the leading edge up. It looked like it was just a tiny section of the leading edge that was having problems, but it turned out that the seam was weak down a section about 2 feet long. Keep in mind, I think Best Waroo Pro HP stands for High Performance, not High Pressure. You still have to inflate these with care.

If you look closely in the above picture, you can see that there are fibers that are running diagonally. This is because the cuben fiber is made on a table, not on a loom. Thus they can get away with running fibers at any angle, not just 90 degrees. You can also see that the cuben fiber doesn't quite reach out all the way into the seam far enough to be structural. This I think is why this section failed.

A break from repairing kites

2009-05-17T12:26:00.001-07:00

Every now and then we get to actually go to the beach and fly kites still. To get away from the sewing machines is a nice thing and reminds us why we got into this kite flying thing to begin with. This is a foil that I designed back in 2000, wow, can't believe that it's almost 2010. Anyway, Paul has been wanting his own foil for quite some time now. He finally built it, and this is the first, and very impressive flight.

Woah there - Settle down

2009-05-07T16:20:00.001-07:00

Got this here today. We extensively repaired other areas but almost sent this out until we saw this great example of getting too excited when you are sewing. There's nothing wrong with doing this on a test piece of cloth while also staring out the window at whatever happens to be out there. And don't get me wrong, we are practiced at diplomacy, but every now and again we get the very accute urge to say woah there, put down the crack pipe and step away from the sewing machine. Anyway, after the small task of removing all the stitching, we just replaced this. Below is what it looked like after we redid it.

Truck Bike | The environment and our kite repair service

2009-05-05T16:48:00.000-07:00

With the weather getting better and better for kiteboarding, we are in our busy season for our kite repair service. Here I am riding repaired kites in boxes from two days of Paul and me working around the clock. Some of these boxes have two or three kites in them too. I love this bike, it's a Worksman Frontloader Trycycle made in New York. I use it all the time to move repaired kites up to where I ship them at the end of each sewing day.

Thanks to all our great customers for making us so busy. We are trying to keep up with you, and trying to use less fuel to do so.

Tim

p.s. yes I know the tires are low on air, man this is such a pet peeve of mine that I almost photoshopped it.

F-One leading edge Repair

2009-04-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

This nicely made F-One hit some rocks and tore up the leading edge very badly. We forgot to take before images, but as you might be able to see, our repair goes from the center of the kite's leading edge all the way out to the tip. Paul, who did this one, said it was the longest he'd had to open and close a leading edge on a single kite in a long time, probably about 12 feet. F-One likes to double stitch their leading edges closed too, and this makes them nicely strong, but also makes them more difficult to open.

If you study the image, you can see our slightly darker red patches, but around those, you can also see the interior reinforcements. Paul staggered the edges of the inner and the outer patches to step down the increase in thickness which prevents a hinge from forming at the margin of our patches. Theoretically this should increase the life of the patch by preventing the material from always bending at the edge of our stitching.

The strut was also ripped. Below you can see the rather complex area that F-One makes around their struts. They at least are smart about it, unlike the slingshot splitstrut system that is impossible to open the struts for service, these are at least made with seams that can be removed from the exterior of the strut.

Another fishbird back on the water

2009-04-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

I was just happy with this Best HP Waroo that I repaired today. Better blog about it.

Paraglider Repair - keep track of the dribs!

2009-04-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

This nice looking wing is a Mac Para Eden 3 Paraglider. This one was sent to us by a long-time kite repair customer of ours, Brian Haupt. Thanks Brian. The cells had pesky damage on the lower skin that also effected the bridle attachment point. This first shot shows some of the damage and the disassembly that was necessary to properly repair this area. In my opinion, this wing is very nicely made. The blue tape in this shot is my way of keeping every stitch hole lined up on the dribs, the bridle point, and the rib they attach to while the skins are being healed up and repaired.

Below you can see the spread of the damage over several cells. It seemed that the wing smeared across a blunt object to cause these small and distributed lacerations.

I also noticed that there are two thread gauges used to make this wing. Of course they were easy to match, but it was interesting to see where the factory decided to use each gauge. Smaller gauge thread seems to lay a bit smoother in the final seam and it also makes your bobbins last longer between refills. Larger gauge thread doesn't always mean the stitch is stronger. If you sew onto an area that can keep up with the strength of the larger thread then it might be a good choice. But on thin cloth, large thread displaces the fibers of the cloth more drastically with larger holes and thus makes it weaker. This factory was smart, as you have to be when a life hangs from your wing.

I have done a lot of work with ram-air foils. I have designed and built them, three sizes in total. I have also taken one of my favorite buggy kites [the quadrifoil competition C2] completely apart, stitch by stitch, to see what made it tick. Recently we've been repairing paragliders here. They are very complex wings internally. Not only do they have dribs, but they are also tediously built with small details all over that are not to be taken for granted. I always imagine the people sewing them from scratch. Like anything that is sewn, if you look closely you can see the human behind the machine. Paragliders are reasonably easy to work on, as long as you pay absolute attention to detail. These wings are a product of many many design decisions and there are no accidents in the way they are built.

Heavily damaged Naish repaired

2009-04-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

This kite was sent to us by one of our supporting shops, Jupiter Kiteboarding in Florida here. I was flattered that they didn't even call ahead to see if this kite was fixable, even as extensive as it was. I guess that after years of them sending us seriously damaged kites they just assume we can fix it no matter what.

Above, you can see that there are two struts that are completely separated from the canopy, and that the canopy is ripped all the way up one strut, across the leading edge and over to the next strut, and half way down. Below you can see that we have put the canopy back together as the first step, but this is prior to adding the patch cloth. The two white lines are the factory reinforcement for the strut-to-canopy seam.

With the struts already separated from the canopy by the accident, it was slightly easier for us to put the sail back together. We also had to sew the trailing edge reinforcement line back in to the hem which had ripped out all the way across the kite. This can be tricky because as the needle of the sewing machine pierces the line the braid of the line is spread apart - this shortens the overall length.

Finally, with the struts sewn back in place, the kite is checked for shape. Actually, we did this just for the photo. We knew the shape was perfect because we saw every fiber line up as we repaired it.

The final shape check shows that this once-shredded kite is now repaired and back in perfect flying condition.

Leading edge repair | air pressure and adhesive

2009-03-12T12:10:00.000-07:00

Notice the curved path that the fibers take around the gash in this Cabrinha leading edge. This rip was not spread open when this patch was first laid down. Even though there was adhesive patch cloth on both the inside and the outside, the persistence of air pressure without sewing continues to work on the weakness—creeping the adhesive little by little. Eventually it will fail dramatically losing the bladder in the process. Below is a shot after we redid this repair. Internally there are two layers which you can see have a larger perimeter than the external cosmetic layer.

Kitefix system - do folks actually like this stuff?

2009-03-12T00:50:00.001-07:00

Hey I get that this functions, I mean in the sense that your kite doesn't continue to fail and it holds the cloth together. But I am having trouble liking the stuff both visually and structurally myself. Kitefix seems to work by approximating the edges of your ripped kite fabric from one side, and then laying the fibrous gauze on the other side, and then slathering a gloppy permanent urethane adhesive from a tube over the entire area. Some added bonuses also seem to be that it will never ever come off even if you would like it to at some point in the future.

The adhesive is so intense that it works its way into the porosity of the fabric and manages to gather sand on the opposite side. Granted, this example was not well done to begin with, but all of this kitefix stuff that i've seen basically looks like this. I think it's just repurposed materials you can get from a hardware store to fix your basement. One of its least attractive features is that it becomes incredibly stiff. It's still foldable and flexible, but stiff in the sense that it does not stretch properly with your kite in the normal stress of flight. It feels unnaturally hard and out of place. Thus when the kite is loaded, it stands out in the kite's shape as an area that didn't get the memo.

ripstop kite repair tape

2009-03-12T00:44:00.000-07:00

Here are two samples taken from the same kite. This thing came in with some really nasty looking repairs on it that the customer wanted us to redo. I thought it was a great idea. This is standard ripstop repair tape doing what it does best, gather sand with its gummy, slidey, nasty adhesive. I'm actually amazed that sand makes its way up under the patch the way it does. I think if you tried to design something to do it that well it would fail to do so.

Best Waroo - juicy sewing goodness

2009-03-12T00:31:00.000-07:00

Paul repaired this Best Waroo today and I thought it came out rather well. I particularly liked the graphics preservation he went to the trouble to do. We can put the patch on the other side and avoid having to do that, but it seems more resistant to abrasion when we put the cloth on the topside of the kite's canopy.

Cabrinha Kite Repair | Featured as graphics

2009-02-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

This is a 14 meter Cabrinha Revolver. It had extensive damage to the canopy and the leading edge. Our customer had it in a tree for a little while - we don't think it was on purpose. When we got the kite, I saw the opportunity to feature the kite repair. Rather than hide such a nice piece of chaos, we decided to use the rips as additional graphics. I checked with the customer who was quite into the idea. It doesn't take much more labor and can look really fantastic. We have lots of fun doing this sort of thing.

On the same kite, here within the name Cabrinha on the leading edge, we hid this patch. Of course, you don't want to feature it all, only if it goes with the existing color scheme well. This was so easy to hide I couldn't resist making is almost disappear. Of course we could color the thread as it goes over the black to help it "go away" but we're proud of the sewing we do.

Here too, the orange is the same cloth that Cabrinha uses. I like to round most edges and corners we sew for two reasons. It looks nice and is usually stronger. And for those who sew, you know it's just a tad of showing off too.

Modified sewing machines to repair kites with?

2009-02-28T10:59:00.000-08:00

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 8:56 PM, Tim Elverston <tim@windfiredesigns.com> wrote:

Hi there Eric,

Thanks for the interest. Our machines have several modifications that we do as standard practice when we take delivery of a new one. Different machines require different setups. Generally we are not too concerned with make and model, because each manufacturer has their good and their bad models. It becomes more and more difficult to get a decent machine these days because they all tend to be more and more "user friendly" meaning that the manufacturers make decisions for you and program them into hard-wired firmware, servo motors, and micro-controllers. I much prefer a manual machine where I can bend any rule I want.

A brightness adjustable back-lighted feed plate is one thing that we like. Allowing fiber-for-fiber alignment because the fabric is more easily seen when lit from behind. A small but wide throat on the feed plate is also important. Other modifications to the thread feed system to take out some of the irregularities in the way it pays off the spool of thread. Needle and thread gauge is also very important.

Quality repairs are about 20% machine and 80% operator. Our repairs, and the details within them, the care we take, and our experience from 17 years of designing and building art kites are really more the issue than any particular machines we use. Speed comes from perfection. If every step you take is perfect then the next goes much faster. Errors magnify.

However, we have a few kenmores, singers, berninas, and a consew needle-feeding compound walking foot.

Light-weight machines are good because of the light fabric used in kites.

Thanks for the interest.

Best,

Tim Elverston

On Nov 14, 2008, at 4:35 PM, Eric wrote:

Hi tim,

I read that you guys have specially modified sewing machines for kite repair. I was just wondering what kind of machines they are, make and model. and how you were able to modify them. do they really increase the quality of the repair or just speed up the process?

--

Later

Eric

How to for kite repair | Adhesive patch based

2009-02-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

We see a lot of kites that come in with repairs that are done at home, or even on the beach or field. I wanted to compile some of the recommendations that I make to people that do this themselves.

DIY how to kite repair advice:

by: Tim Elverston - founder of WindFire Designs and our kite repair service.

Things to remember when the damage happens:

• Don't remove any cloth at all. If you need professional repairs, or if you are doing them yourself, keep every shred of cloth intact. Even if the fabric looks terrible, every little piece of cloth is like forensic information that will help whomever repairs the kite to restore the shape perfectly.

• Don't continue to fly a damaged kite. We are kite fliers too, and we get that many times you want to finish the day even though your kite is ripped. Unless you are absolutely sure that the damage is insignificant, it is always best to err on the side of caution. Almost all of the huge rips we see show evidence of having started from a tiny rip - usually a laceration from sliding over something sharp. Water is a devious substance with huge force behind it. It will find a tiny rip and exploit it instantly.

• Take the pressure off immediately. If you see damage after a crash, take the pressure of the lines instantly or as soon as you can safely. We know this seems obvious, but all too often we hear of damage getting worse seconds after the kite has crashed from a regretful pilot who says they should've unhooked. This goes against your monkey reflex to hold on.

• Decided if it needs sewing. Now, I own and run a kite repair business, so please take this with a grain of salt if you like - I sew absolutely everything. It's far far sweeter to have it locked down. With a lockstitch machine [typical sewing machine], every stitch is almost like a rivet, which you see on every single aircraft anywhere. However, I am very busy repairing kites as it is, and I don't try to talk people into work they don't need me to do.

Where is the damage?

If your damage is on the leading edge or struts it needs to be sewn.

If it is over 6-8 inches long, or is near the leading edge, it needs to be sewn.

It's almost that simple. There are a very few exceptions on the leading edge with tiny damage that you can stick repair cloth behind (between the inflated bladder and the LE cloth) by reaching inside the leading edge tube. See surface prep advice below. On the LE, if your rip over 3 mm then it's a real good idea to sew it. Like water, air pressure is devious and it will be trying to fail that adhesive-only patch forever and constantly working on creeping your adhesive which will form a bulge. The more it bulges the weaker the margin of that bulge becomes.

Score marks that break fibers are very common and they should definitely be sewn asap. Both of these situations are much more a matter of when, not if, the LE will fail. It's much cheaper to get the repair done before your bladder blows up. Never ride on a kite that has a major rip in the LE fabric that has been fixed with adhesive only! Send them to a good repair shop, you won't regret it. Hey why not try us eh? Ha.

Adhesive-only patches on the sail are much the same protocol. If they are within the first third of the kite, I mean from the leading edge back, then it's probably a good idea to sew them. The reason these kites look so smooth in flight is because they are loaded very evenly and loaded hard. Any weakness in this membrane will be exploited and can become huge damage. There are some adhesive-only patches that we see in less loaded areas of the kite that you can kind of tell will last forever without incident. I'd say that if your damage is clean-edged and under about 6 inches, and is in a low load area of the kite, you might be ok. Follow the surface prep advice below. There is a kit available that I think works ok. It's called kitefix, and I would say that it's probably an ok system. Like anything someone is selling you, it's going to be made to sound ever-so-simple and it might simple and great be for small damage. For large damage, it might be ok too, but it's success is really going to hinge on you. Keep the edges absolutely flat and perfectly aligned!

Making an adhesive-based (non sewn) kite repair yourself:

Choose your repair tape wisely.

• Tear Aid Type A, available here at http://www.kitebladder.com [use his contact info and ask Jim Haddox directly about the product]

Tear Aid Type A is an intense vinyl patch used for rafts and also now used for kite bladder repairs and some kite fabric repairs. The adhesive is great, and is so intense that it's sometimes difficult to get off of its own backing material. It's very strong and is clear, so there won't be real visual impact on your kite.

Pros: Versatile and strong adhesive. It makes for a strong repair in either a bladder or kite fabric.

Cons: Not fibrous - meaning it can stretch, so isn't well suited to areas that are subject to high loads [leading edges] or areas that have very long rips. Being not fibrous also means that it is not a good candidate if you plan to sew it afterwards.

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• Typical repair cloth, the ripstop variety, is really only ok in small doses. This is the relatively thin cloth tape that is sold at camping stores and is included with many kites as a repair option. If you're not sure what you have, look for a clear grid pattern [the ripstop] of reinforcement yarns. This stuff is often either a color, or a sort of raw nylon type of translucent or clear.

Pros: It has a very aggressive adhesive, it is cheap and can be found in camping stores. In the short term, it can make a stronger bond than insignia cloth if you are not planning to sew it.

Cons: It is not very strong, which is a surprise given that it seems so sticky. It is really excited to attract sand and this is a huge problem in my opinion. The edges peel up and gather more sand which is abrasive and will short-life the cloth at the margin of your patch. It is also difficult to reposition once it touches the kite which means that wrinkles are often trapped and these are then weak points in the kite. Perhaps the second biggest con is that if you ever have to remove the patch, which we always do when we see this stuff come in, it leaves behind a terrible residue that wants to stick to everything, the kite itself, our sewing machine table and parts, ick! In short, we do not recommend it.

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• Self adhesive dacron is a cloth that is actually polyester. It currently seems to be the fabric of choice that manufacturers include with new kites these days. It is a great cloth, just fantastic stuff. It does not have a ripstop pattern in it, all the fibers are the same, and it's very smooth. You have sticky dacron on your kite everywhere, you'll see it reinforcing seams, strut to LE junctions, tow points, various terminations, just all over. In the short term, the adhesive is not always really aggressive, it needs some time and sun or heat to set in properly, so it's not always great for slap and go type repairs as it should be allowed to sit, unloaded, in the sun before use.

Pros: It is strong. The adhesive and paper backing system is excellent. For the long term, the adhesive is unbeatable. For a do it yourself kite repair it is great stuff because it can easily be repositioned if it has not been pressed down on yet. This means you can get a good and totally flat patch. It is specifically mildew resistant, and UV resistant. The edges don't peel up if you lay it down without wrinkles. It doesn't gather sand. If it ever has to be removed before a professional patch is done, it almost always comes up without residue - praise the wind gods.

Cons: Not many come to mind. The area needs to be prepped properly for this stuff's adhesive to get full strength. I'll cover this more below. It doesn't come in huge range of colors, which can be annoying for some folks. Generally I find that these kites are not particularly beautiful to begin with. However, the lack of color selection is never a problem if it is used correctly. Black always looks awesome, as does white. Many colors are indeed available however, blue, red, hot yellow, gold, green, orange, and grey.

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• Branded adhesive-based kitefix repair kits. Be careful. These use permanent adhesive. You will be locking down whatever you do forever in your kite. I can try to deal with it later with no guarantees. The adhesive comes from a tube and it is real intense. It won't be coming off - so, successful or not it's a commitment.

Pros: Quick, strong.

Cons: Traps wrinkles, it's ugly as sin, cannot be removed if an error in layup is made. It's also messy, and perhaps the biggest problem is that it does not stretch in the same way that the rest of your kite does naturally.

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Prepping your fabric surface:

This is the most important part of using any adhesives anywhere in life.

• Surface prep: If you think that your damage is small enough that it doesn't need to be sewn, (straight rips under about 6 inches in a low-load area of the sail) then this applies. If you personally plan to sew it afterwards, it is not nearly as important. To start, remove sand, and wash the kite with at least water all over. Let it dry completely. Not only does water mess with the action of an adhesive, cloth changes dimension when wet.

Once dry, use alcohol on the surrounding area first. I mean real alcohol, like from a paint store - denatured grain alcohol, not isopropyl rubbing-your-back stuff. Put it on a clean paper towel and just wipe it on and wipe it off several times. Get the whole area that you foresee contacting your adhesive. Once you do this, avoid touching the cloth in that area. Now is a great time to wash the hell out of your hands.

Line up your edges - flat flat flat!

There are a few ways to do this, and it will depend on where your damage is as to how you decide. We have our own methods that don't really apply to the type of repair I'm describing here. The guys over at fixmykite.com have a whole video about how they do their professional repair - they use a sticky bench top. There are some good tidbits in there I suppose, you can hear how awesome they are. Of course I'm going to recommend here that you use our service instead, but I figured that I'd give them a nod anyway. They are good people.

So work out a way to line up the edges. I'd use a stool or a small table. Let the rest of the kite fall away from the area you're working on. You could make the surface sticky somehow.

Perhaps the best way to make sure your edges are lined up and flat is to use masking tape first on the opposite side first. Masking tape, maybe even the good blue stuff, is great. It's non-committal and cheap. Try several times if you need to - this is why you're using masking tape here. Get your edges to line up dead-on! Stick the masking tape on one edge of the rip first.

Don't stretch the cloth as you go. Just lay it down without tension. Once you have the masking tape on one edge, go back and stick the other edge of cloth down lining it up as you go. Watch for clues that you're doing this accurately - graphics, ripstop pattern, and stray fibers all help.

Ok so we're assuming that your edges are lined up and flat now. Good patch cloth comes on a paper backing. Work out how much you need and cut it to shape. I round nearly every corner. This helps it not peel up. Inside right angle corners clearly don't curve well, but we also don't recommend doing L shaped rips with adhesive-only methods. Make your patch cloth about 1 inch over the rip on both sides and at the ends. Don't go less than that. This makes your patch probably about 2 inches wide and hang off the end by an inch.

You've lined up your edges with the above method. You've cleaned your area with proper alcohol several times. You've avoided touching it since. You've cut your cloth to shape. You've washed your hands.

Time to lay it down:

Pick up the corner of the patch cloth with the back of your fingernail. Leaving it mostly on the paper backing. Fold the paper backing under, thus exposing the adhesive at the end of your patch for about two inches. Before touching this to your kite, line it up with your rip and put the damage right in the middle. You can do this by setting the patch down on the kite and allowing only the paper backing to contact the kite. You'll have a tongue of exposed adhesive at one end.

Don't press the sticky part down until you're sure it's lined up. Then touch the adhesive down lightly at the exposed end. Lift the back of the patch up once you've tacked the end down and start to remove the rest of the paper. Again, don't touch the adhesive, or where it's about to stick.

As you lay the cloth down, let it mostly do the falling into place. It's flat, and it wants to lay down flat. If you see it trapping a wrinkle, lift it up and try again—now, not later is the time to avoid wrinkles, they don't come out well at all once the patch is down. Reposition it only with the paper backing still in place where you are pulling from.

Don't stretch the cloth as you lay it down. You want the kite and the patch to be at the same mild tension—just enough to take the wrinkles out, not more. Use your paper backing to make a patch to go on the opposite side.

When you're done, and you're happy with the flatness, burnish it into place. You could use the back of a spoon against a hard table. Don't go too crazy, but give it a good pushing on.

Now remove your masking tape that's on the other side. Use the scrap of paper backing to make a mirror-opposite patch for the other side. Use the same methods for getting it flat as above. If you have a glass table, put a light under it, you'll see the other side very clearly that way.

I hope this guide has been helpful. Let me know in email if you want to add or have problems with this guide. Please also use the comments if you like. Thanks and happy kiting. And of course, if you've decided that you want a sewn kite repair for one reason or another, we'll be very happy to get your business.

Because we're sewing our kite patches, they don't rely on adhesive alone. We make them very narrow and we think they look really sharp. Also, they are not double sided. I could write an obnoxiously huge textbook on sewing, and I may add tips for sewn repairs here as well. For now, I hope this helps. Just remember, it is possible to make a good repair with adhesive alone.

Best winds,
Tim Elverston

Cabrinha Crossbow 2009 | Leading edge repair

2009-02-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

This Cabrinha Crossbow came in today. I like the look of the new 2009 ones. They seem very well made and Cabrinha has done some simple smart things with the same materials that I think will make the kite stronger than it used to be.

It had this small rip in the leading edge.

First we open it up by removing the stitching on the main closure seam of the leading edge.

We double layer the interior and single layer the exterior. As we close the leading edge after the patch is sewn, we like to see light through the previous holes. This lets us know that we're lining it up perfectly.

Some nice subtle use of black and white thread can hide a repair very effectively.

Kite repair on a Cabrinha leading edge

2009-02-18T15:07:00.001-08:00

Two shots of this repaired Cabrinha leading edge. The vertical stitching in this shot is the factory stitching. The straight stitching and the triple step zig zag that runs along the main closure seam is ours. This is how we think a blown out leading edge should look after it's been reinforced and sewn closed again.

Car cover made from kites that were not worth repairing

2009-02-18T14:38:00.000-08:00

Part of the way Paul learned to sew was to make me this car cover. This cover was originally made from new materials. The first one, which I made myself, rotted after more than a year in the sun. It used to be that my car was covered in leaves and that kept the drains that are designed into the car from working properly.

I designed this car cover by first draping painter's plastic over it and drawing the panels I wanted onto that. I then taped up the corners for a better fit, drew a few more reference marks, and cut the plastic off. I chose my favorite side of the plastic to reproduce symmetrically from left to right and discarded the other side. These became the templates for this car cover which is now on its third generation.

The bottom has a draw string with an e-jam cleat [youtube link] to keep the cover on. This car cover used a Liquid Force, a North Vegas, a Cabrinha prototype, and some various others.

Paul Forrestel and Katy Castronovo repair two kites

2009-02-18T13:35:00.001-08:00

I love the blur in the shot of the needle.
Paul Forrestel teaching and working alongside Katy Castronovo. Katy is an artist that does some lovely things you can see by clicking her name above. Paul is repairing a Cabrinha leading edge that blew out. We first reinforce the edges and sew the margin of the reinforcement before closing the leading edge. We removed and replaced the white factory strip because when the LE blew it ripped through much of it. Katy is repairing a Best Waroo that has a reasonably simple but large rip in the sail.

Really BAD kite repair

2009-02-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

WTF

These shots I am going to apologize for subjecting you to. This, in my opinion is why one would be advised against using a sail shop to repair kites. This kite came in today and I thought it would be a good example of everything we are not. This poorly repaired Cabrinha has skipped stitches, trapped wrinkles, sewing that goes off the edge of the patch, square corners, and needle and thread that should only be used on sails. Yikes.

Best Waroo 9m strut

2009-02-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

When these struts fail so close to the leading edge, it really makes it difficult to sew because the fabric is so stiff. This is a Best Waroo now repaired at the center strut.

perfect

2009-02-03T10:18:00.001-08:00

This was an epic kite to repair, but at least I get the bragging rights.

Time lapse of Tim and Paul sewing on kites all afternoon.

2009-01-29T16:13:00.001-08:00

This video is a time lapse of us sewing all afternoon. I made this with an open source program called Gawker. The camera was set to take a frame every 30 seconds. I extended that by 300% and frame blended it to give it that effect. I am fixing an Ozone Access, and paul is repairing two Best Waroos. Thanks for watching. Oh and the music is Disco Kid by Strut, a great band and friends of ours in Asheville. It's a bit better if you ask youtube for the HQ version.

The long way is the easy way

2009-01-28T15:52:00.001-08:00

I was going to cheat [ok I wasn't really] but I was severely tempted. This foil really needed to be deconstructed before I could properly fix this cell - as it is shown here in this photo. It's tempting to just bridge over the rip - from the surface of one bottom skin to the next. But you never acheive the correct shape that way, and your bridle points, shown here taped temporarily with darker red, won't ever be able to pierce through the patch you would make by cheating without being weak. So, it is best to just take all the stitching out and get to the three layers and fix them independently. The white is the rib and the two orange layers are the bottom skin panels. This is a small part of an Ozone access that has been completely ripped in half and then some. The edge I had to rebuild is shown here with the slightly lighter orange patch running down its length. The white rib also needed a fix where one of the bridle points won out against the strength of the cloth.

For some reason, I guess because it's winter still, we've been doing a few more foils than usual these days. They are not as common, and this one will be done soon. But, as my boss at the old bike shop told me, the long way is the easy way.

The golden peter lynn zippers

2009-01-27T19:32:00.000-08:00

These zippers were outrageously difficult to get. They go in a Peter Lynn arc style kite. They are "sealed" and I don't use quotation marks lightly. You'd think that you'd be able to get an inexpensive sealed zipper in this country. However, not so. They are made in China, I know, I was seriously surprised myself. But it means they are not available outside of products in this country. You can get german ones from germany for 80 bagillion dollars each. You can order them from YKK and wait 3 months!

We needed some because we are repairing a venom for a customer. Enter Blake Pelton. Our good friend who also used to be a distributor for Peter Lynn had some lying around. I know you were going to say that he had some in a drawer, no these were in kites. Sheer luck! Thanks Blake. You saved our customer from these goofy looking degraded zippers in this image.

The seal has delaminated from the zipper tape. In the first shot you can see the good zipper that Blake cut from a damaged kite. Thanks dog.

Kite Repair FAQ

2009-01-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

I'd like to have here a running dialog where I can get general questions and answer them as comments and responses. We'll see how this works. I'll do my best to respond asap. Most of this will be done after shipping time during the evening.

Putting an Ozone back together

2009-01-24T21:49:00.000-08:00

We're about to put this foil back together. It's in two pieces. Pretty funny. It's an Ozone Access foil that has been ripped in half. It's in good shape but obviously suffered a serious incident. Jan, our customer, knows it isn't going to be super-fast - probably in the next few days we'll be done. I will post back here when we are complete with a few shots. Hopefully we'll be looking respectable. Thinking about doing a time-lapse of the procedure.

Fibers for bedtime

2009-01-24T16:40:00.000-08:00

So, I’ve been repairing kites for a long time now. When I first started it was like learning to sew all over again. I'd then been sewing for over 10 years and thought I was already pretty damn good at it. Many of the challenges it presented were expected. Stiff fabric in tight places and sewing panels long after the kite is complete that were added near the beginning of the manufacturing sequence. All these things were difficult to get not only right but also looking sharp. One thing in particular though has been a real plateau to get to for me. Sometimes there is a situation that happens where a seam's thread will fail all the way down. Like a zipper had been opened. The kitesurfing kites have inflatable struts that run down the sail and sometimes they come away from the sail in this way. Okay so back to sewing 201. On long seams you have to manage the creep of the lower layer. Keep it from bunching up. Well here is the thing. You are not working on your own kite. You are working on a kite built in China on a seam that was previously already sewn. Your're trying to emulate the way it was sewn to begin with, matching the other struts and especially the strut you are sewing on. If you sew it perfectly, it isn't perfect. Keeping the layers from moving isn’t the objective anymore. You have to allow the lower layer to creep the exact amount that the Chinese operator and their machine did. Otherwise you will end up with a cm or more of empty stitch holes on the bottom.

What is really interesting for me about this is the mental state it puts me into. I like to imagine that I have been at my machine all day long and didn't get coffee and I am not making any money and I will go home to 12 people in my 400 square foot apartment. I like to think of the floor director looking over my shoulder and not saying anything but writing something down on a clipboard and moving along to the next machine. Then I think of the person I’m repairing the kite for. How he or she will be thinking about how much their next kite will cost, the fact that they are so expensive. Like nearly all of us in this disposable world, never putting the two simple facts together that they are paying me $80.00 and shipping both ways to sew a simple 6 foot repair, meanwhile telling me how wonderfully reasonable my prices are - which is certainly true. However, the entire kite, bag, and 4-color printing in the included instructions, was priced at retail of say $949.99 and was shipped across an ocean of water in a container on a ship. How does this happen? The kite cost the retail storeowner a little over half that. That means the distributor bought it from the factory for close to 1/4 of the retail cost. So the factory gets $200 for this kite. Out of that comes material and overhead. Where do the wages for the workers fit in? It’s just amazing.

I see in these kites a precision of manufacturing that sometimes makes me doubt my own abilities. I find little Chinese characters hidden under the seams to indicate where each of the hundred and fifty or so panels and pieces go. I see an eyelash stuck under the adhesive of a reinforcement strip. The people who made this kite probably know little of how it is used and certainly will never be able to afford one. What do they dream? Could they ever imagine that I would be sewing on seams that they made? Do they think of the kite in the sky? I can only sew and wonder.

stitching and thinking

tim

Dear customers of our kite repair service

2009-01-24T16:32:00.001-08:00

I'm going to attempt to make this useful as a place for news about current kites we are repairing. Most of the time, we are too busy actually sewing to actively update this page. However, I thought it would be a good idea to have a place where if I learn things that I want to share, techniques etc. that I could make that happen here.

Best,

Tim Elverston

for our main kite repair page, please visit:

http://www.windfiredesigns.com/repairs.html