Making Fighters                                      Making two-line Deltas                            Making Paneled Kites

You can make kites from about any light smooth fabric or paper that is hard to blow through.  I started buying Icarex for lightness and strength, and enjoy its workability but use Nylon more often.  Besides being cheap or free to come by it has the ability to settle into the shape of the kite frame, curved hems are easier to sew, is much quieter (not announcing your crashes so proudly) and doesn’t develop white wrinkle marks. Yes, everybody knows nylon stretches more than polyester, but how the fabric is woven and coated makes a big difference. Hang em High Fabrics and Kitebuilder have some real bargains on nylon and polyester fabrics sometimes down to $4 per yard or even less. 

Any kite maker living near a yacht harbor should become familiar with the local sail makers. These shops toss out spinnaker scraps or sell them cheaply, and some sell it off the roll for good prices.  Check the Yellow Pages. 

The advantages of paper or Orcon for fighters and mini kites include using almost any glue and paint, with no need for power tools.  Orcon is strong and quiet, and performs best in light wind.  Mylar gift wrap is slightly heavier but much cheaper.  Sewn fabric fighters are longer lasting than taped Mylar or Orcon kites.  Tyvek housewrap can make a good sail, but is a bit heavy.

I keep the scraps of Spectra that I save from trimming, breaking or finding on the kite field to make my own bridle line.  I use a needle to feed it through braided Dacron flying line then dye it black with Kiwi leather dye after winding it around a cardboard box.   I use un-cored Dacron for light wind kites or soft kites. Sometimes I thread small dacron through larger dacron braid to make heavier line.  It isn't clear to me that Spectra is all that important for all bridles since the line lengths are usually short and therefore stretch less anyway.

The line used for kite boarding makes a fine stunt kite bridle. It consists of a braided Spectra sheath containing a Spectra core which has more durability than the Spectra-cored line used on commercial kites.

A small wooden board to lay on a table with a nail protruding from the face at one end, makes a useful bridle jig.  A metric sewing tape from a fabric shop can be attached to make measuring easier.  The whole thing should be at least a meter or three feet in length.

Kitemeister Charlie M'Clary introduced the tautline hitch  to me, or vice versa.   This knot makes line adjustable in length and when under tension grips the standing part of the line. Simply slide the knot along the standing line to adjust.  This is useful for bowing kite spars, tensioning leech lines in trailing edges, arcing graphite fighter spars, or making experimental bridles tunable in the field.  For some reason, it sometimes gets overlooked as a kite knot.

Spectra, LaserPro, Dyneema and  Berry Blue are brands of braided High Modulus Polyethylene (HMP) line.  Tackle shops are sometimes less expensive sources than kite shops for this stuff if you don't mind sleeving it yourself.  A needle with a big eye is all you need.

Earlier stunt kites used glass fiber spars that have lost ground to lighter, stiffer materials. Carbon pultruded  spars are made of carbon fibers extruded with an epoxy resin into tubes or rods. They are also pulled from the die they are extruded through, hence the name.

The axial orientation of the fibers makes for a stiff spar, but with only moderate resistance to splitting along its length. Tube walls are somewhat thicker relative to diameter than with wrapped spars.
Wrapped spars are spirally wound with ribbons of fiber from one end to the other, sometimes over a thin walled pultruded spar or aluminum tube. They have a greater resistance to lengthwise splitting, and makes for a lighter, stiffer spar. These stronger spars usually break cleanly without splitting. A spiral ridge is formed during this process that is sometimes removed by grinding or sanding the spars smooth to remove weight and reduce grooves that can focus stress into fractures. Some wrapped spars have thicker ends for durability, and this must be considered when cutting them to length. 
Tapered spars have a lengthwise taper that concentrates strength and weight toward the larger end. These spars are used on ultra light kites for leading edges and lower spreaders. As leading edges, the thicker ends of the spars are joined and this assembly is trimmed to length after considering the joint placement.
Joining two spars is done with internal or external ferrules, short lengths of tube or rod that are fixed to one spar with CA glue or epoxy.

A look at Dave Lord’s meticulous spar selection charts almost convinced me that picking kite sticks was rocket science.  For his very sophisticated kites, it must be.  I’m very impressed by wrapped and tapered, stiff, light and pricey stuff.  I visit it at the store and touch it occasionally.  This beginner is happy to just guess, use cheap pultruded graphite and change them later if they are too stiff or flexible.  The downside of this is a slightly smaller wind range.  When cutting them, I leave them long in case I’m wrong.  Taping ferrules in place for first flights before gluing is an idea that can save some trouble.  For converting between standard metric and inch diameters, this Spar Chart is sometimes helpful.

I'm gradually introducing wrapped spars to my kites, since some are reasonably priced and add stiffness without a weight penalty.

Carbon/aluminum arrow shafts are superior to standard pultruded tubing and is sometimes available as factory seconds from Easton at low prices. They come in 32.5 inch lengths in standard diameters such as 1960, 2300, etc. These are thin-walled aluminum tubes wrapped with carbon fibers in  epoxy resin.

So far, a Dremel tool with an abrasive cut-off wheel has worked best for cutting.  Sometimes, a hacksaw blade with over 32 TPI clamped teeth up in a bench vise works well while drawing the spar across it.  This makes turning the spar while cutting easier than when holding both saw and spar at once.  Sanding the ends smooth reduces splitting.

Old ski poles, fishing rods, arrow shafts, bamboo and wooden dowels seem like solutions to some kite making applications.  Those graphite ski poles look like great Quad LE spars.  I once wondered why the 32.5 inch length for spars was common.  That's the length of a standard arrow shaft before it's trimmed to length.  Fishing rods can serve as Flexifoil kite spars.  Bamboo skewers make pretty good standoff substitutes when those tiny things get lost.  Although not for ultra ights, fiberglass spars aren't that bad.

Fittings

Sometimes kites give some grief in the form of broken spars or fittings, and the first reaction is to "go bigger" on the replacements to prevent a recurrence.  Sometimes, though, the bridle fails to distribute the load to the frame properly, or the wind is just too high for that kite.   I try to avoid the use of poor quality rubber fittings, and try to use Exel, APA, Jaco, and other reliable brands.  Occasionally even these will have a defect and crumble or split, so its good to buy extras.  The plastic Exel T-fittings can be drilled out for larger spars if needed, and a small step can be left inside to position the inner ends of the spars.  The folding type of standoff sail-grabber is clever but sometimes tears thin fabric, and only works well if the whisker is perpendicular to the sail.  I wait until the kite is sparred to fit these, to see if they fit right. Machined end caps with a hole instead of a notch enable lines to be easily tied to spar ends.  I make these from aluminum tubing for sizes I can't buy.  Velcro makes a simple and tidy adjustable spine tensioner, suitable for larger kites.  A bag of assorted heat-shrink tubing is handy for making too-large fittings work in a pinch and can save the day if you are far from a kite store.  Even the lowly vinyl tubing or electrical wire insulation can fill in for fittings.

Sewing Machines

An aluminum alloy White model 1919 has been serving me well for about five years, and cost about $200.  I've seen used ones for half that price.  It sews sail fabric, canvas and tissue-thin Icarex equally well.  The timing went out of adjustment once but was fixed by the dealer for free.  It sews four zigzag and three straight stitches, plus a dozen others I don’t use, without relying on circuit boards.  I increased the presser-foot tension by inserting a 3/8-inch spacer under the spring so the serrated teeth can grip slippery fabrics, keeping the stitches more uniform.  Someday I’ll make a crank for the hand wheel for detail work with the motor off.

I picked up a White walking foot attachment for $10 at Joann's Fabric. While limited by the fact that the motion is regulated by the needle clamp instead of the feed dogs, it may prove useful for keeping layers aligned when stitching tube tails. It will probably only help with certain stitch lengths. Not a true walking foot, but worth a try.

Heavy cast-iron machines are generally superior to these newer ones but my heavy old National Rotary, while built like a fine tractor, couldn’t sew thick layers, zigzag stitch or be carried with one hand to the backyard or to where the light is best. 

Lately, sewing machines seem to turn up at flea markets and yard sales for around $10.  I'm told the Kenmore machines are good kite making machines, and these are quite inexpensive.   I got a beautiful 1960's black and gold leaf Japanese Mercury machine that is a jewel of craftsmanship for absolutely nothing.  I picked it from the curb. Someone had taken good care of it and supplied a cord and foot pedal with it.  It sews only straight stitches, but sews them very well, and would be great for making foils or soft kites.

Bill Painter uses a machine called a serger to make NASA kites with techniques he has developed to speed the assembly of his kites.  The serger almost weaves a web of thread along seams and hems in ways that are hard to explain.  These machines are fast, and are quite versatile.  Check out NPWBill's Site for a description of this technique.

Since clothing is so inexpensive these days, those machines our mothers and grandmothers used are for sale everywhere.  There are websites devoted to restoring and using old sewing machines and these sites can help locate info on just about any old make, and some manuals are reproduced online as well.  Sewing machines are mechanically similar to gasoline engines, with camshafts, timing adjustments, and things to clean and lube.  Fun stuff!

If you so inclined, Pfaff dual-feed machines are available with all the gadgets the professionals love. Knee controls, bobbin-out lights, needle up or down stop settings and on and on. Ask someone who owns one if you have lots of spare time. They might even have wallet-size photos you can study while they wax poetic about their baby.

Basting tapes and glues can help sometimes to tack pieces together but sometimes gum up the needle or show through thin fabrics.  A common office-supply type glue stick is one of my favorites for basting, since it washes off easily and Beacon Fabri-Tac is my favorite for heavy basting, especially curved seams and hems or when sewing Mylar, but if used too heavily it grips the upper thread as the needle withdraws, causing loose bottom stitches.  I guess a needle lubricant available from sewing shops would help, but it's simpler to go light on the glue.

Hot-cutting fabric seals the fibers together to prevent fraying and is useful wherever the cut edge will be exposed after sewing.  I've used a paring knife heated with a propane torch, a Weller 100W soldering gun, a Wen 150W gun, various 25-45W pencil-type soldering guns, and a pistol-grip 30W cutter from Hang 'em High Fabrics.  They all worked but were awkward, didn't get hot enough, got too hot, or just quit working (both guns). My latest cutter is a 30W wood burning tool from Taiwan, sold at the A.C. Moore craft store for $10, including four tips.  It looks like a pencil-type soldering iron but the tip is much shorter, making it handle like a pen.  So far it's the best I've used but is a bit hot for very light fabrics.  One refinement  is to wire a standard wall-mount light dimmer switch in a double outlet box to adjust the heat level of the hot knife. The blue mark is the best setting for kite work.

For cutting center T holes, spreader holes, and other types of holes, a set of gasket punches work well. These resemble pieces of sharpened pipe. Just lay the fabric on a wooden block, set the punch and whack it with a hammer, and a clean hole is formed, much like using a paper punch. Stroking the cut edge with the hot-cutter seals them nicely. Mine came from Harbor Freight for a few bucks.

For cutting curves, templates made of poster cardboard won't burst into flame and work well for numerous passes.  A large cardboard version of a draftsman's French curve (yes, I'm that old) can be used for line layout and hot cutting.  A wooden stick or spar bent with a string and tautline hitch makes a good adjustable curve for layout of gentle curves.

Lately my larger kites have been made on an old ping-pong table, and the improvement from working on the floor is amazing.

Traction Foils

Foilmaker is a powerful free program to design your own foils, sleds and sparred hybrids. It allows you to enter variables such as dimensions, canopy and rib shape, venting, bridling, cell number, and much more and then quickly showing the result and allowing you to print the templates out directly so the fun can begin. A cutting list and bridle table are output as easy-to-read references. You can even output a VRML file that allows you to "test fly" your kite in a 3D environment. A large number of plans are available in Foilmaker format, and Daniel Gagnon's manual provides a wealth of information program along with sewing and design tips.

Making these kites is fairly simple if the basic steps are thought out in advance before stitching the parts.
After the ribs are all attached to the lower skin, the addition of the top skin closes the kite. Each rib is sewn to the top skin until the last one, which is done by rolling the kite up and wrapping the unsewn edges around the rolled kite. Then the last rib is  sewn and the kite is unrolled. This way all seam edges are  internal The trailing edge is then sewn closed and the kite is ready to bridle. This is a good time to trim threads and inspect your work. 

Any way to save time on each repetitive step is worth trying. This method of attaching the bridle is faster than sewing dozens of tiny fabric loops to the kite, and is cleaner to the eye and wind. This also helps when using continuous fabric across cells making loops harder to attach. A line is sewn lengthwise along with the lower seam of the rib. These are sewn together in one pass to prevent weakening the fabric with needle holes. A groove filed into the bottom of the machine's presser foot helps center the line under the needle. The bridle line is poked through the skin and seam of the rib, up and over the reinforcing line and down through the other side. Making the holes with a hot cutter might weaken the reinforcing line, and since at this point the kite is closed up, hard to repair. Piercing these holes with a triangular sailmaker's needle is gentler to the fabric than a round needle. A slipknot with a mushroomed or knotted end fastens the bridle leg. The reinforcing line protrudes from the trailing edge slightly and ends in a overhand knot, to which the brake bridle is slip-knotted. These knots also help in making adjustments later after flight testing. Click here for some drawings regarding foil sewing.

Hanging the kite by the bridle tow points for checking tends to acordian the cells, but hanging it as shown in the picture simulates flight a bit better. Any mis-measured legs will be obvious at this point and can be re-worked in this position.

Making kites can also be entertaining in unexpected ways.

Stacked kites
What makes the top kite flutter?

Observations of flying kite stacks motivated me to make this drawing, an attempt to explain the instability of the top kite, derived from some sailing theory and wild guesses.  The flow at (2) is similar to the "slot effect" between the jib and main of a sailboat, with a smooth flow that acts as a venturi.  Since the airflow from the kites is directed downward, a low pressure (1) area forms above the top kite.  Airflow over the back of the top kite is drawn toward this area causing turbulence.  Stunt kites have less buffeting as they are moving forward through the air and single line kites seem more sensitive.  Hovering quads also show this fluttering but lose it when moving forward or backward.  Wider kite spacing or higher wind speed seems to stabilize things. On a sailboat, the jib (corresponding to the top kite) can be stabilized through adjustment. A higher angle of attack for the top kite is the best solution so far.

Kite-flying Gear

Like kites, most of the gear to fly them is easily made, examples of some is amid the stuff at right.  Homemade winders, handles, stakes amid a kite gadgets.  Anodized 7/8" aluminum tubing with foam bicycle grips for large quad handles, small quad handles are alloy rods with mouse-pad material stitched on for grips, birch plywood scraps from boomerang-making makes good line winders, a large dowel with grips as a power kite bar, and dowel handles on stakes made from rain-gutter spikes, straps made from dog leashes....etc.  My kite collection gets carried in a bag for a Snipe sailboat jib.  The pizza box seems to be the standard fighter kite box for the folks that don't just stuff them above a car sun visor.  I have seen control bars made from bicycle handlebars and tent stakes, screwdrivers, ice picks, tree branches and the usual dog stake used to anchor kites.  Old windsurfer harnesses work for power kiting, using a sailboat snap shackle for a quick release.  For power kiting, sailboat shops have lots of things that work for bridles and harnesses. Fishing tackle shops have foam grips for quad handles, Spectra line, ball-bearing swivels, clips, rings and rod blanks in many sizes at low prices. Upholstery suppliers have thread, buckles, eyelets, needles, and fabric.