Anyone-glue the bladders?

[km1125]

I have an older Quicksilver RIB that I'm working on. Got all the leaks figured out but it appears both bladders have been "compromised". Looks like both are detached from the top of the tube.

Has anyone opened up the tubes and re-glued the bladders back in place? Wondering if there are tricks to doing it.

 

[Sea Rider]

Will need to open a large amount of both adjacent tubes to bladder (baffle) in order to gain hand access and work much comfy inside tubes. Better would be to redo the whole bafle to asure a perfect seal on both side tubes, but it's a hell of a job and costly to send inflatable to a repair shop to do the work.

Happy Boating

 

[km1125]

Well, I had a small leak in the seam just forward of one of the bladders. As I worked that seam open to find my way back to a section that had a good seal, I had quite a bit apart, so I opened it up so I could get at the bladder. just the very top of the bladder had become disconnected, where it would have been baking in the sun. I took a bit more apart and reglued. let it sit for a day and put some air in, and it's held now for 3 days!! I'm getting the courage up to take the other side apart and do the other bladder!!

 

[Sea Rider]

If the opposite "bladder" is in good working order leave it alone till fails as first one. Seams, baffles, handles, oar base will eventually become unglued due to poor inflation, that's boating with much less pressure than the fabricator recommended and stressing those parts due to flexing.

In all the years boating with inflatables have not had a single failure on any of the mentioned parts as regularly use a pressure gauge to monitor current pressure once Sib rests on water for some minutes and re inflate any air chamber if needed to min 3.0 PSI for top combo performance.

Happy Boating

 

[km1125]

When I got it, neither of the bladders were working. All three valves needed to be resealed, which was a job in itself. Got those sealed up finally, and then found a few other small leaks around some seams. Got those sealed up but they were harder to find as the whole thing would lose pressure at the same time due to both bladders being compromised. We've used it for a while like that but I was always concerned if we had a larger leak that the whole thing would deflate and not leave us any flotation. Nice to know that the bladder can be fixed and it's really not that hard, just time-consuming.