Little Star - Construction
This kite's sail was made from ripstop nylon and fixed together with venture tape. Each sail panel was cut out using a small butane-powered soldering iron and metal ruler. Using this hot-cutting technique melts and seals the nylon fibres to stop the edges from fraying. The sail panels are layered so that the darker colours are on the near face of the kite, therefore, when light shines through the sail no dark silhouetted lines are visible between panels.
All sewing on the kite and the original carry bag was done by hand (I did not have access to a sewing machine at the time). The sewing thread used was black Sew-All thread.
The tail is just over 4m long and made from 50mm wide strips of ripstop nylon.
Materials
70gsm Ripstop Nylon (PU coated) 4x4mm Ripstop
6mm Venture Tape
4mm Fibreglass Tube Spars
4mm End Caps
4mm Plastic Dihedral Connector
25mm Hook and Loop
25mm Dacron Tape
15daN Bridle Line
13daN Flying Line
The first kite I made was the "Little Star". The reason behind its construction was that when my wife and I were expecting our son, I wanted
