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How to Build a Diamond Kite
Step by Step—Page 2 of 3
The MBK 2-Skewer Diamond
How to Build a Diamond Kite
Making Spars
For this diamond, you need four 30 cm (12 in.) bamboo BBQ skewers. Also, you need to cut off four short 0.15 SL (4.4 cm, 1 3/4 in.) lengths of skewer. The photos show how these are all glued together.
One pair of skewers has the pointed ends raised up off the table, forming the horizontal spar.
The other pair are just lined up straight, flat against the table top, with a point at each end. This is the vertical spar. To make sure there is no kink at the join, get your head down low, and look along the skewers. Shift one a little, if necessary, before the glue dries!
How to Build a Diamond Kite
Attaching Spars
- Snip off one point from the straight pair of skewers.
- Line this end up with the top corner of the kite sail, with the skewers resting along the fold line of the plastic.
- Attach the bamboo to the plastic with insulation tape as in the photo.
- At the bottom corner of the sail, snip the skewer to length, and attach the tip to the plastic in the same way. This is the vertical spar.
- Now lay down the other pair of skewers across the left and right corners of the sail so the middle join sits on the vertical spar skewer.
- Snip off the points of the skewers so the tips line up with the left and right corners of the sail. Take your time, since you don't want to snip off too much bamboo.
- Tape the tips to the sail corners. This is the horizontal spar.
- Finally,
put a drop of glue above and below the crossing point of the spars to
attach them together. The photo shows the kite at this point.
How to Build a Diamond Kite
Bridle
Dacron line in 20- to 50-pound strength is suitable for all the Skewer Series kites.
All the construction details for the bridle are contained in the large photo below. Look and read carefully, and you can't go wrong on this rather important bit! Just use Dacron line for the bridle pieces.
KNOTS
If you are new to this, you might need instructions on how to tie the following knots:
Loop knot
Double-Wrap Slip knot
Prusik knot
TIP: Secure the slip knots onto the bamboo of the vertical spar with a tiny blob of wood glue so they can't loosen.
ADJUSTMENT
Once your kite and bridle looks like the photo up there:
Hold the short bridle line up so all the bridle lines are straight, with the kite laying flat on the table or floor.
Referring to the diagram below, shift the Prusik knot to the shown position. It's not necessarily the perfect position for your individual kite, but it should at least fly on the first attempt! Later, you can experiment with shifting the position away from the nose a little at a time to improve how high your kite flies.
How to Build a Diamond Kite
Tail
Cut out a long rectangular piece of dark plastic for the tail. Black garbage bag plastic works well. Make it about 0.3 SL (8.7 cm, 3 1/2 in.) wide and 8 SL (230 cm, 90 in.) long.
Tie one end around the vertical spar as close as possible to the bottom tip. See the photo. A single Half Hitch will do, since there are very low forces on the tail in flight.
You can see the full length of the tail in the "Flying" photo on the next page.
At this point, you've finished making the 2-Skewer Diamond!
To attach the flying line, just Lark's Head the flying line to the short bridle line as in the photo.
As mentioned earlier, there's more kite making on this site than you can poke a stick at. :-)
Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?
The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads—printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.
That's every kite in every MBK series.
