Making kites

[Prashun Patel]

Anybody do this?
I think it'd be a great project with my kids. Not sure where to start though. The resources on the web are overwhelming...

[Mike Cutler]

How elaborate are you trying to make the kites?

We used to make our own kites,diamond shaped,and box, as kids. They were made from newspaper, string, glue, sticks and tape.Really pretty simple.

We used to lay the sticks,maybe a 1/2" wide by an 1/8" thick ( we were only 8 or 9 so accuracy wasn't an issue;)), out in a cross, and tie them in the center. Then we would motch theh ends of the sticks and run a string through each notch forming the diamond.
We would then lay out two sheets of newpaper that were glued and taped in the middle, and set the diamond on top of the sheets of paper.
Next we would fold the paper over the string that formed the diamond and cut enough off to still leave an inch or two of overlap, which we would glue and tape.
Take the ends of the horizontal cross memeber, bend them into a bowand secure the bow with string.
Attach the control string to the point that the cross members meet, attach a tail, and start running while you let the string out.
The fun is in changing the dimemsions of the kites and experimenting to find out what works best.

[Dave Ogren]

Shawn,

Send a PM to Jude Kingery in AZ. She is a member of this forum and has been in some kind of kite making and flying for over 20 years.
They have a big convention somewhere in Az ot new Mexico every year.
If she doesn't know, which would surprise me, she can put you in touch with someone that can help you.

Best of luck and Happy Flying.

Dave

[Lee Schierer]

How elaborate are you trying to make the kites?

We used to make our own kites,diamond shaped,and box, as kids. They were made from newspaper, string, glue, sticks and tape.Really pretty simple.

We used to lay the sticks,maybe a 1/2" wide by an 1/8" thick ( we were only 8 or 9 so accuracy wasn't an issue;)), out in a cross, and tie them in the center. Then we would motch theh ends of the sticks and run a string through each notch forming the diamond.
We would then lay out two sheets of newpaper that were glued and taped in the middle, and set the diamond on top of the sheets of paper.
Next we would fold the paper over the string that formed the diamond and cut enough off to still leave an inch or two of overlap, which we would glue and tape.
Take the ends of the horizontal cross memeber, bend them into a bowand secure the bow with string.
Attach the control string to the point that the cross members meet, attach a tail, and start running while you let the string out.
The fun is in changing the dimemsions of the kites and experimenting to find out what works best.

We used to do the same thing, with the only difference that we made a bridle for the kite that would let us adjust the angle of attack depending upon the strength of the wind. We tied a length of string that was as long as the total height of the vertical stick, about 1/2 way down from the top of the kite to the cross piece and about 1/4 up from the bottom. We attached our kite string to this bridle so that it could slide up or down.

One other detail is you need to make a tail out of strips of old bed sheet about 1" wide to balance the kite, otherwise they tend to just spin. Add more tail for strong winds less for light winds.

For a really fun kite substitute a cleaners bag (clear plastic) for the newspaper and use rubber cement for glue. You will have a kit that appears to be just two sticks and a tail flying.

[Dennis Peacock]

Like the others, we would go out into the field and find us 2 good straight sticks. We'd then take a large brown paper grocery sack (remember those?) and open it up making it a single large flat sheet of paper. cut away any waste that you aren't going to use. We'd use some of our kite string to tie the two sticks together in a cross form, run a strand of string around the perimeter of the cross form (trimming sticks is a requirement to fit your paper sack ;) ) and then tie off the string. We'd then use regular school paste (glue) and fold the brown paper over the string edges forming a diamond shaped "kite". We poked a couple of holes in the kite where we wanted to tie the string too, which was usually around where the 2 sticks were tied together, and fix us up a tail out of some old rags and off we went.!!

What FUN that was!!!!

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks to all of you. I'm going to try some of these.
- s

[Belinda Barfield]

One other detail is you need to make a tail out of strips of old bed sheet about 1" wide to balance the kite, otherwise they tend to just spin. Add more tail for strong winds less for light winds.


I'm going to differ with Lee in one detail. The tail needs to be made out of multi color strips from a bag of quilting scraps. :)


Like the others, we would go out into the field and find us 2 good straight sticks. We'd then take a large brown paper grocery sack (remember those?) and open it up making it a single large flat sheet of paper. cut away any waste that you aren't going to use. We'd use some of our kite string to tie the two sticks together in a cross form, run a strand of string around the perimeter of the cross form (trimming sticks is a requirement to fit your paper sack ;) ) and then tie off the string. We'd then use regular school paste (glue) and fold the brown paper over the string edges forming a diamond shaped "kite". We poked a couple of holes in the kite where we wanted to tie the string too, which was usually around where the 2 sticks were tied together, and fix us up a tail out of some old rags and off we went.!!

What FUN that was!!!!

Amen Dennis!

Now I want to have a Creeker gathering and make kites, and roast S'mores and tell ghost stories around the campfire. Sigh. My granddaddy was the best kite maker in the whole world (well, my small world anyway). It wasn't so much that he made the perfect kite, but that he took time to teach us kids to try.

[Prashun Patel]

I haven't discovered a better feeling than the one I had last week running through a field with a kite streaming behind me, followed by my 2 squealing 5 year olds! Bliss.

(Nevermind that the kite was so cheap, it ripped and was only staying modestly above the ground by the sheer Carl Lewis-like force of my sprinting).

[Dave Johnson29]

The tail needs to be made out of multi color strips from a bag of quilting scraps.

Damn girlies making sissy kites!! :D:D:D

[Belinda Barfield]

Damn girlies making sissy kites!! :D:D:D

Pardon me sir, but I was quite the tomboy in my younger years. I'm sure there is a picture somewhere of me climbing a tree or some such. Grandma's old sheets were used for cleaning purposes, and as such were off limits. We could sneak quilting scraps without getting caught!

Sorry Shawn, not trying to encourage your children to misbehave.

[Prashun Patel]

Encourage my kids? Brenda, they need nary an encouragement to do THAT.

[Dave Johnson29]

We could sneak quilting scraps without getting caught!


Yeah, but they would still be sissy kites. ;) I'd rather have tied up strips of dirty cleaning cloths. Even better than white.

[wells conklin]

We used to make our own with newspaper like some of the others, then we'd see who could get the longest tail on his kite. What fun we had!