Kite Making Tools and Materials

A ruler. Any length or type will do. All MBK kites use straight lines to make things easier and quicker. What if the ruler is too short for a long sail edge? It's simple to stretch out a length of flying line, weighted at each end, to mark several intermediate dots. These dots can then be connected using the small ruler. Voila! A long straight line.

A pair of scissors. This simple kite-making tool is mainly for cutting around the outline of the sail. It's also handy for cutting flying line to length for constructing bridles, trimming excess line, and snipping off lengths of electrical tape.

A small cheap hacksaw. Use this for cutting wooden dowel to length.

A cheap medium-grade wood file. Use this for rounding spar ends and cutting notches for securing bow lines. Not everyone has kite-making tools like saws and files just lying around the house, but these are very widely available in shops.

A calculator. Yes, find a calculator of some sort, like on your cell phone (mobile) or the Windows one or whatever. But there's no heavy calculating to be done; it's just handy for those using Dowel Length units to create a kite on a different scale to my originals.

A smooth flat area to work on. It only needs to be 2 meters (7 feet) square or so. Even if you are living in a tiny apartment, it's possible to use these kite-making tools to get something impressive in the air!

Lightweight, clear sticky tape. That is, Scotch tape, Sello-tape, sticking tape, or whatever you like to call it. Just make sure it is about the width of your finger. The tape I use is 12 mm (1/2 in.) in width. This is used to reinforce the edge of the sail, since it doesn't stretch and doesn't add much weight.

Large translucent (see-through) colored plastic bags for making sails. Here in Australia, large orange garden bags are available from supermarkets. These bags are ideal and also make the finished kite easy to see in the air! Use the lightest single-ply bags you can find for these light-wind kites. Color-wise, you must be able to see a black marker pen line through the plastic. The MBK construction method relies on this. Heavier plastic will sacrifice a little light-wind performance in return for a more durable kite. Your choice!

Wood dowels. The one pictured is 5 mm (3/16 in.) in diameter, which needs to be cut to length for the dowel kites. MBK Dowel designs use just a few dollars worth of dowel for each kite. After making and testing the sled, diamond, and barn door, I figured out that the ideal dowel was 5 mm hardwood such as the Tasmanian oak available here. Elsewhere, red oak should be OK.

In North America, Chinese poplar is commonly available as dowel. This is softer than oak and other hardwoods so 1/4-inch diameter would be a more appropriate size.

Wood glue, such as the Aquadhere in the photo. For most of the dowel kites, this is only used for securing knots. Hence only very small amounts are needed, and it dries much quicker than expected. Even the other uses, such as box-kite cross pieces, need relatively small amounts. A 100 ml container will last a long time when just used for making MBK kites. If you are in a hurry, you will need to spend considerably more per 100 ml on a tube of fast-setting general-purpose glue.

Shoelaces are used for securing spars to each other. We found that cheap polyester laces designed for a child's shoes were ideal, since they were adequately strong yet not too bulky or heavy.