Selleys URETHANE BOND' from the hardware store.
apply to both sides, let dry a bit, push together and put something heavy all around over night.
You can also get replacement valves which have adhesive back already and you just stick them on. Have redone most of my valves on one kite and am getting leaks once in a while. Had a replacement bladder ordered from the manufacturer and received a new one with a seam open. Not even the spare parts are quality checked..
hope you get it to work, works for me
regards
gmd

+1 for the urethane bond.
Clean both surfaces with methylated spirits.
Get a small piece of newspaper say 4*4 cm. Roll it into a cigarette shape and insert into the bladder. Unroll it inside and position it with bladder hole in the centre. This will ensure that you don't glue the far side of the bladder to the near side.
Apply glue and use a large size socket (say 32) from your socket spanner set. Place this over the valve with a book or something else heavy to apply pressure to the flange around the valve nipple.
Control your excitement for a few hours.
Done.
Now to get that thing back in.

PS: don't be shy with glue but try to avoid excess glue going to the inside.

+1 for the urethane bond

If it's open enough, put a piece of paper inside and position so accidental glue spread is not an issue. The paper left inside is not a problem.
I would wait overnight to let it set.

Stormsure is same type of glue smaller tube and half the price of Urethane Bond.

Bladder repairs is a fact of life for Kitesurfers.

The killer for kite bladders is very small amount water inside bladder then leaving it in a boiling car. With the heat / water vapour weakens these valves at glue/ fuzed joint. Worse if you leave the kite struts inflated.
Iv'e tried glueing, heat sealing, adhesive Urethane strips and patch type.
The gluing option with Tarzans Grip or Urethane Glue tends to work for a while then it falls apart when you least need it. The solvent in the glue base also effects bladder and it tends to cause it to soften and crinkle. Any Glue that does get into the inside of the bladder, the glues solvent can effect bigger areas, so it is good idea to blow up and deflate several times to get solvent vapours out of bladder.

The best solution I have found is the stick-on (adhesive) inflation nipples. Put the old Nipple in hot water and gently peel off before cleaning immaculately with metho / alcohol before allowing to dry and sticking on new valve.

To remove an old glued valve or patch, soak this area in bowl of metho for a few minutes then gently peel away when soft. Other solvents will damage bladder so test first on some scrap bladder first.

These stick on Air Valves are not cheap, expect to pay ~$30 each.

stjepan said...

the nipple that feeds centre strut has pulled apart from leading edge bladder, thinking all i need is to glue, . . what sort a glue?

I'll probably be "bagged out" for saying this but for a quick fix liquid nails seems to work well for a valve repair, I've used it a number of times and it seems to work just fine although the brown colour may not look the best.

I've tried all sorts of glues for this issue.

- Super glue (difficult to use, prone to leaks)

- Plumber's cement (messy, toxic and unpredictable)

- Contact cement (sometimes works but often leaks and you have to do it over again);

- Tarzan's grip. (leaked every time I've tried to use it.)

- Urethane bond (pretty good, but once you open the tube, if you don't use it all in a month or two, it goes hard and it's expensive).

-- Best I've used is neoprene wetsuit repair glue that you can get from a dive shop, but, at $35.00 a tube it's not exactly cost efficient and it suffers from the same flaw as urethane bond in that it hardens in a few months after opening the tube.

So, if StormSure is essentially equivalent to urethane bond, that's definitely the way to go.

Make sure BOTH surfaces are super clean. Use a quick wipe of acetone just before applying but not too much or it will melt the latex.

For extra sealing, I cut a piece of latex from an old strut or bladder about 2X the diameter of the base of the valve, cut a hole in the centre of the latex patch and glue this ON TOP of the valve base and onto the bladder. That way, the air has to pass through two set of glue and latex in order to leak.

As has been reported many times on this site, best way to ensure a permanent bond is to take a 2.5kg dumb-bell weight and put it over the valve to hold it in place while it's drying.

Just make sure you don't get any of the glue on the other side of the bladder!

BTW, Steve at Kitepower is an ace bladder-fixer. Save yourself the trouble and just send it to him to fix it for you! :-)