How to Make an Indoor Bird Kite

On this page are a number of easy steps showing you how to make an indoor bird kite from readily available materials. 

The only materials required for this design are

• One sheet of plain copier paper—A4 or Letter size. Use colored paper if you want to!
• 18 mm (3/4 in.) clear sticky tape, in a dispenser preferably. Narrower tape would be even better, if you have it.
• A light plastic bag, at least 45 cm x 30 cm (18 in. x 12 in.) before being cut open. I used large freezer bags. 
• Any polyester sewing thread, preferably the lightest available.

The tools required, if you can call them that, are

• A pair of scissors.
• A ruler.
• A straight edge longer than 45 cm (18 in.).
• A ballpoint pen.
• Colored permanent markers.

Note: In the photos below, yellow lines have been added to make clear where the edges of sticky tape are.

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Step 1—Make Sail

• Lay down a plastic bag, and smooth it out to remove the most obvious folds and creases.
• Measure and mark dots as indicated in the photo.

• Flip the bag over.
• Mark dots over the five showing through the plastic. See the photo above.

• Cut the bag along the sealed edge, to open it.
• Cut the bag along the opposite side to the side with seven dots.
• Open the bag out into a single flat sheet, with the dots on top. In the photo you can see all 17 dots. 
  

• Using the dots to guide you, rule lines as shown in the (enhanced) photo.

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Step 2—Decorate Sail

Do you have permanent colored markers? It's time to take them out.

• My approach was to put a 0.6 cm (1/4 in.) wide border of black all around on the inside of the sail outline. This was followed by a colored swallow-tail shape set 1 cm (3/8 in.) in from the black border. See the photo.
• You do whatever you like! Just try not to add too much weight though. Doing "sparing line art" is how to make an indoor bird kite look good and minimize weight.

• Cut all around the outside of the sail with scissors. Cutting thin plastic can be tricky so take your time. Sharp scissors help!
• From here on, we will refer to the plastic piece as the sail.
  

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Step 3—Make Spars

Measure and Draw

• Take your sheet of paper and mark dots as shown.

Note: Each white line—even if it is so short it looks like a dot—has a corresponding measurement nearby.

• With ruler and pen, connect the dots as shown.

Laminate and Cut Out 

• Lay down sticky tape to fully cover the shapes. A small amount of overlap is OK.

• Flip the paper over so you can add tape to the reverse side of all the shapes.

Note: It might help to place the paper up against a well-lit window, to trace the corners. Another way is to poke holes through the paper with a pin, at all the corners. Then you can see where all the shapes are.

• Cut out all the shapes, as shown.

Join Vertical Spar Pieces

• Lay down the two pieces with the widest ends, bringing those two ends together. Although there is no continuous straight edge, do your best to align the pieces as shown, by eye.
• Tape the pieces together at the join. Use just enough tape to go once around the entire join.

Fold Lengthwise

• Fold all the shapes in half, down their lengths as shown.
• Crease all the folds sharply. The thin pieces are tricky, but it can be done! Just do the best you can, by working along bit by bit. Pinching between thumb and forefinger works well.
• What you have now is a vertical spar (the longest piece), two leading-edge spars (the next longest pieces), the spreader (wider in the middle), and two battens (the remaining pieces).

At this point, you're about halfway through learning how to make an indoor bird kite! The hardest bits have been done already, I'd say.

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Step 4—Attach Spars

Tape Vertical Spar

• Flip the sail so the artwork is against the table.
• Take the vertical spar and align one end to the top corner of the sail, ensuring the join is closest to the top corner as shown. Also ensure the fold angle is 90 degrees or a little less.

• At the top corner of the sail, place a short strip of sticky tape along the vertical spar.
• Gently press down on both sides so the tape sticks down to the left and right.
• With scissors, trim the overhanging tape flush with the sail edges. See the photo.

Note: If tape corners stick to the tabletop, gently scrape away with a fingernail or sharp edge. 

• At the bottom of the tail, lay down a 4 cm (1 1/2 in.) strip of tape as indicated in the photo.

• Sharpen the crease a little if necessary, so the paper sits at about 90 degrees over the plastic.
• Just below the join line in the vertical spar, add a short strip of tape as shown.

Tape Leading Edge Spars

• Check the fold in a horizontal spar and sharpen the crease if necessary to get that 90 degree fold angle.
• Tape the spar in place with three squares of tape as shown. Wrap about a quarter of the square around and under in each case.
• At the tip, trim the tape and paper flush as shown in the photo.

• Do the same to the other side of the kite. The photo shows both leading-edge spars taped in place.

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Step 5—Attach Spreader

• Place the spreader over the vertical spar, aligning the central mark(s) with the fold in the vertical spar.
• Slide the spreader along the vertical spar until one end just touches a leading edge.
• Ensure that the spreader is horizontal—90 degrees to the vertical spar in other words.
• Stick the end of the spreader onto the plastic as shown. Use a square of sticky tape, folding the overhanging corner around and under. See the photo.

Note: The perspective of the camera makes the dot on the spreader look off-center. It isn't :-)

• Now support the wing on which you taped the spreader, using some handy object underneath.
• Shift the supporting object until the free spreader-tip just touches the plastic.
• Gently place a square of sticky tape over the free tip, so it too is stuck to the cross spar.
• Fold the tape corner around as before, then remove the supporting object.

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Step 6—Attach Battens

• Take a batten, sharpen the crease if necessary, and position it as shown in the photo. The lower end should extend just past the tip of the tail.
• Place a square of tape over the batten, about halfway between the spreader and the trailing edge of the wing. See the photo.

• Position the batten over one side of the swallowtail shape, in from the plastic's edge by about half the batten's width.
  
• Place a square of tape over the end of the batten as shown in the photo.
• Trim off any overhanging paper and tape with scissors.

• In the same way, add the remaining batten to the other side. There they both are, in the photo.

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Step 7—Attach Flying Line

You have pretty much finished learning how to make an indoor bird kite at this point!

• Flip the kite over so the spars are against the table.
• Mark a dot on the plastic 1.5 cm (9/16 in.) below the join line in the vertical spar. 
• Cut off about 2 meters (6 feet) of polyester sewing thread and lay one end over the marked dot.
• Stick down at least 3 cm (1 in.) of the thread by lining up a 3 cm (1 in.) strip of sticky tape with the marked dot, as shown in the photo. Press to the left and to the right of the thread, to avoid flattening the paper spar.
• Stick down another, shorter, length of tape—going across this time instead of down. See the photo.

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Step 8—Flying!

This is a very low-speed kite and it will effortlessly float up at walking pace. Be careful not to jerk the thread or pull too quickly, since this will promptly fold up at least one of the spars!

If a spar does fold up, don't despair. Just carefully pinch the paper where it failed, to get it back into that V-shape section once again. Then try again, going a little slower or smoother this time.

The Launch Technique

This is how I like to launch, on a length of thread equal to your shoulder height:

• Lay the kite flat on the floor, with the thread on top of course and the tail end pointing at your feet.
• Lift gently straight up, while taking a couple of quick steps backward.
• If the kite appears to be rising, turn around and walk forward while looking back over your shoulder.
• Within seconds, you should see the kite floating behind. Walk a little faster to climb the kite, slow down to descend. It's a fine balance!

If you have the space, try letting out more thread and adjusting your speed until the kite cruises along just short of the ceiling. Look out for light fittings and so on. Look where you're going too, from time to time ;-)

If you need even more line length, just tie on more thread and wind it onto a small square of cardboard.

I hope you have enjoyed learning how to make an indoor bird kite this way.

 

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