Patch a wing bladder pinch flat and prevent?

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If you think about it, a wing is never going to experience much of a pressure gradient across its substance. The worst will be if the diver inflates it to the point where the OPV opens. So if your repair will tolerate that, it's probably pretty solid. The rest of the time, the air in the wing is going to be at the same pressure as the water outside it, so there is little to cause the patches to fail. If you are diving a balanced rig (not diving horrendously overweighted) you won't have much gas in a wing at any time; the time when you have, and want the most, is at the surface, where a wing with holes in the bottom of it will hold at least some air.

My first doubles wing was given to me with a patch in it, and a letter from the company saying they would replace the bladder. I did eventually have that done, but I dove the thing for quite a while before I got around to it.

Replacing the bladder is certainly a BETTER solution, in that you then have an undamaged wing, but it's not a disaster to have a small leak in a wing unless some other things are also fairly wrong -- eg. Brand new diver diving very much overweighted.
 
I don't disagree with your logic Lynne but this is a used wing that sprung three leaks shortly after he acquired it.
 
I don't disagree with your logic Lynne but this is a used wing that sprung three leaks shortly after he acquired it.


What difference does any of that make?. For recreational divers with a reasonably balanced rig, a wing is basically a convenience, not "life support". When a wing is life support, a good diver has a back-up.
 
I wouldn't use it..apparently others would...enough said. Any way I broke my "don't comment on Stuartv posts" rule so I will let this thread die :)
 
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I have considered diving without a wing for 80/80/80 diving... Usually my weighting is spot on at the end of a dive with just a ss plate, but I'm certainly not too heavy at the beginning. I just usually don't mess around with adding gas to my wing unless I've added weight to be a little heavy for a hot drop.

Personally I would not have a problem with a patch in ow recreational diving.
 
I don't disagree with your logic Lynne but this is a used wing that sprung three leaks shortly after he acquired it.

I think what you are missing here is that the OP admits he damaged it himself because of the sea conditions. It is not that the bladder is disintegrating because of age. If it was, I think everybody here would recommend to replace it.
 
OMG!!!! YOU"RE GONNA DIE!!!!!!.............or not. Probably not. But, Aquaseal has a life and will start peeling sometime in the future. When it does, peel the whole patch away and cover the hole and about an inch out with 3M Marine 5200. That's it. It's real simple, no buffing, no hoping, just put it on and leave it until the next day. It makes its own patch and will never come off. You can get it online, at West Marine, and other places for about $8.00 a tube. This stuff rocks! Been patching bladders, drysuits, etc for years. Ain't below the dirt yet and have never had a close call because of it. Mark Michaud
 
If you want the best patch, quick, easy, and permanent, try this:

TEAR AID TEAR-AID® Fabric and Inflatable Repair Patches | West Marine

There are two different ones, the tan box is the one you want. I never leave home without it and have a kit in my scuba tool box at all times 'just in case'. No waiting , no hassle, no down time, can be applied during a surface interval and you won't miss a dive.
Just make sure surface is clean and dry, peel and stick and you're done!
I patched a hole in my Oxycheq urethane bladder about 8 years ago and it's still in perfect shape.
Another reason why I like wings with accessable bladders.
 
I have had problems trying to patch some dive rite bladders, and I called them once to ask about it, and they said they deliberately make their bladders out of a material that does not stick to most adhesives to discourage people from patching them. So I bought an oxycheq wing. Take that, dive rite!

Stuart, avoid the holes-for-tanks on the boat and you should be okay. I usually lay my tank on its side on the boat deck instead. It does annoy people in a very small boat, which I think is a plus.
 
For some reason I thought Aquaseal took longer to cure, but if you read the directions then I believe you.

Different manufacturers use different construction technics for their wings. For example, Oxycheq uses a much thicker bladder and sprays the shell with urethane. Halcyon uses some sort of ballistic nylon for the bladder, which is more resistant to pinch flats. Do you have a clear/opaque bladder or a black one? My understanding is the black one is thicker and more resistant to pinch flats.


Uh well no not exactly. Nobody "sprays urethanes" on wing shells. Most wing shell fabrics have a "kiss coat" of thin urethane on the inner surface to reduce fraying. The only genuine "ballistic" nylon is duplex weave 1050 denier. This produced by twisting two 1050 denier threads together and using that paired fiber to weave the fabric. "Ballistic" nylon is what was used for flak jackets prior to the UHMWPE materials like kevlar and Spectra, nobody is laminating urethane to genuine 1050 and using it for bladders.

DSS uses a 30 mil urethane film for our bladders. Nobody I know of uses a thicker material for bladders. We have it custom made by a urethane film mill. Why do we use this material? Simple we impact tested a wide variety of materials, including laminates (thin nylons with thin urethane films glues to them, think smb or lift bag.) and found the thicker urethanes performed the best in impact. Impact is what causes bladders to pinch flat. We built a repeatable impact device that would drop a weighted rod fitted with a 1" ball bearing onto a hardened and ground steel plate. We could control the height for repeatability.

BTW impact testing is the reason we use true 1050 ballistic nylons for shells. No wing needs the strength of a genuine duplex weave 1050 denier ballistic, the advantage of the 1050 vs 1000 denier or "pretend" ballistic (1600) is the ability of the duplex weave to attenuate impact. Real basket weave duplex 1050 is thicker and "springy" which helps to absorb impact.

Which would you expect to better absorb impact, a thick springy outer shell fabric and a thick (30 mil) resilient inner bladder or a relatively thin flat weave outer shell and a thin inner bladder with a couple mils of urethane laminated to it?

We also found that no combination of outer shell and inner bladder was impervious to impact. If you drop your plate edgewise on your wing from any height above about 6 inches expect to damage the bladder. Proper use and care remains the best defense against pinches.

I should note that many wings are produced using 12 or 15 mil urethane bladders. (Jobber stock this material and one need not order a custom mill run of thousand of pounds) We tried that early on and found they were too easily pinched. DSS has not produced a wing with thin urethane in many years. Thin straight urethane films and thin urethane laminates are also tricky to weld. There have been more than one recall from wing brands using laminates due to failures in the fitting welds.

Tobin

---------- Post added March 23rd, 2015 at 10:46 PM ----------

I think you are being a bit of an alarmist. Stuart fixed the wing using patches and aquaseal so the integrity of the wing should be intact. There is no way a little leak is going to develop into a big leak. Zeagle even sells a BC repair kit with patches. I am sure Tobin doesn't want to patch wings because it is not worth his while to do so. It is quicker for him (and not that much more expensive for the customer) just to replace the bladder.

Tobin doesn't patch wings because 1) the process is hard to control 2) It makes his insurance carrier unhappy. I doubt you will find another wing maker that sells replacement bladders installed and tested as inexpensively as we do. $50 for singles wing 60 for a doubles wing.

Tobin
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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