Box Kite

For some reason, I came across plans for a box kite on the Internet and became bent on building one. I have many of these insane urges...

Construction

Equipment

• needle
• sewing scissors
• fabric pen or washable marker
• small garden pruners
• tape measure
• heat gun (the kind for stripping paint)
• drill and 3/8" bit
• small saw (hack saw works)

Materials

• 1m of light nylon material (the kind of thing used for umbrellas)
• thread
• 4 × 20"-long 3/8" dowels
• 4 × 36"-long 3/8" dowels
• 1cm × 1cm strip of wood
• paraffin wax
• kite string

Method

The instructions I found were, unfortunately, all in imperial units, so I have a strange combination of metric and imperial untils. The original instructions called to tape a garbage bag as the sails of the kite, but I decided to replace the bag with real fabric. I bought 1m × 1.45m at the local FabricLand for about $8. Just a note, if you are young, male and insecure, you may not want to go to FabricLand as you will be the only male in the store, and probably the only person under 30.

I began by making the sails. They are two sheets of nylon (12" × 60") with the edges seared to prevent fraying using the heat gun. I made them into a loop by overlapping about 1/2" of material and sewing it. At the vertical middle of each sail, I made 4 equidistant holes (one directly on the seam) about the size of a quarter and seared the edges.

Using the pruners, I cut the dowels (which comes in 48" lengths at Home Depot) to length. I worried less about getting them the right length as getting them the same length. I then took the small strip of wood and created joints. I first drilled all the way through in the centre of the strip towards one end, then rotated it and drilled through the face until it met the first hole and finally, sawed off the end. I did this eight times to produce eight T-joints.

I rubbed the posts with paraffin to make them slick enough to slide a joint 6" on either end of each post (36" dowels). I then hung the sails on one post. The holes in the sails should roughly line up with the joint. I then sewed the sail in place at the edges of the sail and the sides of the hole. I hung the post horizontally on a door knob and slipped another post inside the sails. I let gravity position the post at the furthest point in the sail and stitched it in place. I then put both posts on the door knob to position the third post and finally the third post to position the foruth. This evenly distributed the posts in the sails. I originally positioned the sails so that both seems were not on the same post or pair of posts.

I attached the string the one joint, looping around the post above and below the joint and attaching to the original line with a sailor's knot (Carrick bend). I then installed the spreaders (20" dowels) in the remaining holes in joints to force the kite open and into its box shape.

Flying Attempt 1 (Sunday, September 26^th, 2004 ─ 4:30PM)

I went to the school yard of Westmount Junior School near my house. It wasn't very windy. For my area, The Weather Network was only reporting 6-9 km/h winds. This is the field I attempted to get the kite up in. Because it was so open, there was decent wind across it.

I was all ready with my kite.

The wind was not consistant; rather gusty. During the gusts, I could get the kite up, but I could not get it very high before the gust would pass. I got it up about twice in the field, but never got a picture. I gave up and started to head back. As I was crossing the parking lot, a huge gust picked up the kite by itself and I let out line. It got about 7m in the air, but the digi-cam's battery died! After that gust, it fell and one of the corners was damaged. At this point, I headed home.

I would like to fly it again when there is a more decent wind, but I'm glad that it works!

Flying Attempt 1 (Sunday, October 3^rd, 2004 ─ 6:00PM)

I got it up higher than the last time, but only got a picture after it began to fall.

However, when trying to get it up again, one of the posts snapped just below the joint. When I got it home, I removed the spreaders to access the snapped piece of wood and two joints snapped. I need to replace both joints and I may replace the posts. I may have to create a new sail since I don't know if I can get this one back on with out chewing it up. If so, I'll hem it instead of melting the nylon. I'll also figure out some kind of sleeve so I can remove the sail easily.

Repair

In the end, I replaced all the joints on one end with new ones. I managed to find a bunch of small blocks from a sort of tinker toy, so I drilled them to the right diameter and added another hole. I didn't bother to replace the sail.

Final Flying Attempt (Saturday, October 9^th, 2004 ─ 3:15PM)

It was finally extremely windy. Apparently, the construction is flawed. It would begin to get up and then dive down. A few crashes successively broke the joints until the kite fell apart. One of the sails had begun to tear along the stitching as well. So, I've dismantled it.

I think the problem was mostly in the sails. I think they weren't square enough, so when the kite was up, small gusts would spin, rotate and cause the kite to dive. If I did it again, I would do things differently. Melting the nylon caused it to pull. I found that it is much better to lay a straight piece of wood on the floor and melt the nylon into a straight line. The holes where the joints poked out were also irregular. I also should have hemmed all the edges, and rather than stitch the sails to the posts, I should have made small sleeves. Oh well, it was fun.