Cracking Little Kite!

by Rikki
(Dublin, Ireland)

This is a great tutorial and I just want to share my experience.

This is a fun kite to fly, is very stable even in strong breezes and has not crashed yet!

I would agree with the advice to only fly this kite in light breezes. After all, the bamboo skewers were designed for a BBQ, not a kite project :-)

Having built a large 1.5 meter Rokkaku kite in the past I wanted to build another.

My little daughter is fascinated with kites.

The plans are clear and simple. Maybe a few more pictures would be helpful, along with a feature to click on a picture to enlarge it.

However, I felt the original plans were a little small so doubled the scale.

The whole project took just an evening to make.

Instead of wood adhesive, hot melt glue was used with excellent results.

It sets in just a few moments which is good as I am often impatient to be getting on to the next stage of building!

The bamboo skewers are just able to cope with the strains of flying my double scale kite in a strong breeze.

I would hesitate to build a triple scale kite with skewers. The MBK Dowel Rokkaku is much better on a larger scale.

Notching the horizontal spars then bending and gluing did not seem like a good idea on a double scale kite.

So some ideas were borrowed from the MBK Dowel Rokkaku.

20 pound fishing line was used to induce the correct bend into each horizontal spar.

Hot-melt glue holds all the knots and spar crossings in position.

The bridle was also copied from the MBK Dowel Rokkaku with excellent results. (Tie points are 0.25DL out from vertical spar)

Kite bridle was adjusted to hang at the recommended angle of 30 degrees.

In a strong wind the plastic sail gets pushed back, effectively reducing lift.

This causes the kite to lower towards the ground.

When the breeze drops a bit, the kite sail recovers shape and provides sufficient lift to soar back into the sky.

How long this kite will last in anyone's guess.

But it is great fun and a break from the high tech commercial offerings.

Also there is the immense satisfaction of building a successful kite from household items. It's priceless.

My next idea is to build another Rokkaku kite and stack them...