If you want to know what you can use to make kites, and what has been
used in the past, look no further!
Traditionally and up until recent times, the sail has been made of
fabric such as cotton or silk, or of paper. More recently, man-made
materials have almost completely superseded these except in the East,
where traditional kite making still thrives in many places.
Sails are now
often made from ripstop nylon or polyester, which is a woven material
coated on one or both sides with a thin plastic film.
A small proportion of the threads, a few per inch in each direction, are
thicker than the rest and have the effect of arresting any tear. The
material was developed as a substitute for silk for parachutes, in which
any rip, for example from a bullet hole, would be catastrophic if it
Other materials used are normal or high density polythene (including
recycled supermarket bags) and mylar film, as sold as gift-wrap.
which is a woven and bonded material made from high density polythene fibres,
Tyvek is another modern material often used. (If you can remember 5.25"
diskettes, they used to come in a storage sleeve which was often made out
of Tyvek.) Details of it can be found on the
DuPont web site.
Traditional kites have been made
from paper or silk. Whereas paper is still used, silk has been virtually
completely replaced by ripstop, in the West at least.
Wood or bamboo was normally used for spars in the past. Wood, such as
dowelling, is still often used and split bamboo is still used for
fighter kites. But in high performance kites, fibreglass or carbon fibre
is more usual. Carbon fibre gives enormous stiffness for a given weight;
one of the first things you notice about it is that if you drop a piece
on a hard surface, it rings like a piece of metal - something no plastic,
or even fibreglass, would do.
Construction is normally by sewing except for paper, for which glue or
sticky tape is used. Adhesives can be used with ripstop nylon and
polyester, but you need specialist ones such as 3M9460 acrylic tape.
By the time you've followed the special procedures require for it
to be successful, this doesn't turn out to be an easy option for
someone without a sewing machine. Nevertheless, good
results are possible, as shown by this picture of Bob Neitzke's
Bridge kite, constructed by this method.
One of the challenges of kite building is to make something which is
visually highly appealing. Some kites, in particular cellular kites, are
made out of a number of separate pieces stitched together, and so these
lend themselves to a careful choice of colour scheme. Simpler kites can
also be made using a patchwork technique for a similar effect, but if
you're after putting pictures, motifs or lettering on your kite, you
have to use other methods.
Painting kites is popular in some circles, and has been used for many
years in the East to decorate traditional kites made with natural
materials such as cotton or paper. Tyvek takes acrylic paints
successfully, but ripstop nylon and polyester are harder. There are
- Soft fabric
paint can be used on (as sold for decorating tee-shirts, in the UK
under the name Dylon Colour Fun), but you must be patient and apply it
in thin layers, heat-curing each before applying the next, otherwise it
remains tacky. Colours are less vivid than with some other methods, but
a striking result can still be obtained. My
chi-rho kite, using Charlie
Charlton's 1.2m Rok
plan shows what can be done very easily. (The chi-rho and the fish are
two very ancient Christian symbols which I have combined in this design.)
Much more successful are spray paints as used for
colouring artificial flowers, but the downside is that these are
normally based on toluene or xylene, which are highly
toxic. The fumes can easily kill you even before you realise you've got
a problem. Worse still, they are cumulative, which means that what you
got away with yesterday could kill you tomorrow. Nevertheless, stunning
colours are achievable with this method. Here are some experiences of
painting on ripstop from an expert in the field.
- Some people have
successfully used dyeing
on ripstop. And another useful resource on
- "Lucite" house paint can be used very successfully. This is an
acrylic paint with added teflon which enables it to stick to most
things. Here's a report by Pauline Taylor about
its use, and plenty of pictures
of the results.
Another option is to use T-shirt transfer paper. You print on it with
an inkjet printer and then iron-on the transfer. It's reported to
work as well on ripstop nylon as on T-shirts and survives washing and
scrubbing, but its long-term durability has yet to be established. The
main drawback is that you can only do A4-sized sections at a time.
Peter de Jong has written some useful
notes on the
Many kite builders use a technique known as "appliqué". To take a
simple example, suppose you wanted to decorate your kite with your
initial. You would cut out the letter in a colour contrasting with the
kite sail, and sew this to the back, making sure you sew all around the
letter. You then turn it over and cut away the original sail just inside
the line of stitching, exposing the letter. A complete picture or
complex design can be built up using multiple colours. The technique is
particularly effective when the light is behind the kite since unlike
paint, much of the colour comes from transmitted light. Only a moderate
amount of skill is required - with a little care, anyone should be able
to achieve an acceptable result with a simple but effective design on
their first attempt - and the time taken may not be any more than that
needed to paint and cure several colours.
Until fairly recently, the choice of material for flying lines was
necessarily restricted to natural fibres. Nowadays, polyester or nylon
lines are commonly used.
However, these are too elastic to allow the fine control
needed by modern sports kites, for which high density polythene is used,
under trade names Spectra and Dyneema. These are very strong for their
weight, indeed, it is the same materials, woven into fabric, which are
used for bullet-proof vests! A disadvantage is that they have a low
melting point which can easily be exceeded if they are crossed with
another flyer's nylon or polyester line. They also need to be sleeved
with polyester or nylon where they are knotted otherwise the
concentration of stress can cause them to fail at well below their rated
Another area where special lines are used is in fighter kites. Control
of these involves allowing the line to run through the hands and pulling
it in, again by hand, into a pile at the flyer's feet. Normal flying
line should never, ever be allowed to run through the
hands as severe burns will result. Special waxed or glazed line is
available for fighters which can be safely handled in this way.
Oriental fighter kites are flown in battles using line impregnated with
ground glass or some other abrasive, the aim being to cut the opponent's
line with your own. Needless to say, such lines are not controlled with
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Copyright © 1999 Philip Le Riche