I do a lot of kite and windsurfing sail repairs/modifications. I race land yachts (landsailers) and I'm always altering windsurfer "race sails" for
more performance.
I use double sided carpet joining tape that comes in 50mtr rolls 50mm wide and slit it to the width I need with a snap blade knife. I get it from my
local floor covering shop.
When sewing I put a few drops of "Sewers Aid" as mentioned above (it's only pure silicon oil, which is soluble. I buy it in 1 litre bottles and use it
on my kite lines as well) onto the needle every 300mm or so to stop it gumming up, as sometimes I'm sewing through 10 or 12 layers of dacron all
bonded together by this tape. (I find the thinner the material say 2 pieces of ripstop with tape between it seems to gum up the needle more than huge
thicknesses).
In Australia the carpet tape is either "Tessa" or "3M" brand.
It's Ultra thin, clear and so dam tenacious I can assemble a sail and take it out and test it in light wind before even sewing it up.
This is fantastic as the sail can then be fine tuned if needed to match the mast curve. This is invaluable as it is a domino effect when something is
altered. One alteration leads to another to get it right.
The fabric can be repositioned easily on the tape for a few days and then it seems to develop a more permanent adhesion. It can still be separated/
removed later on if needed, but the tape isn't much good to be used again. If it's only been assembled a day or two it will remain on one surface and
it's easily reused again.
This tape is invaluable when slit to 6mm wide strips for repairing foil race kites with their light weight fabric.
This tape is used to refit/retain their profile and not have to perforate the fabric any more with pins. These kites with leading edge plastic rods
holding their profile are really fiddly to sew together. The tape solves this.
Cheers. |