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To start kite making you obviously need some tools as well as the actual raw materials (sail, spar, fittings, bridle line, etc.). These are the tools I have used to build all my kites (currently - as of May 2004 - eight kites, with the ninth in progress).
Obviously you need a space to work - I did all the sewing on our dining room table and all the messing around with the soldering iron in the kitchen. For all the cutting I used either a off-cut piece of melamine coated chip board or an old mirror I had lying around. These did the job but I guess did end up blunting the craft knife more quickly than it would normally have done.
I found you do need quite a large space to work in - a Revolution kite is over 230cm in length - I found my dining room was just about the right size - anything larger would become very hard to work with (oh well - no making that 6m C-Quad then).
Essential to sew the different
parts and panels together. For kite making you only need a simple
machine - one that does different lengths of straight stitch is the
minimum (like mine), but one that also does ZigZag stitches is more
useful.
As I didn't have a machine I had to buy one - which cost me £35 second hand from a local sewing machine shop.
You use a soldering iron to hot cut (i.e. a hot
knife that melts the cut edge) bits of Dacron - if you don't (i.e. just
use a knife) the ends can fray. You could of course buy some gadget to
do this, or (like me) you could find that old soldering iron you have
& never use, and file down the soldering bit so it's flat and
sharp to use it for cutting.
Also you need one to melt neat holes in the sail/leading edge to take fittings (like the bungee cords on the Revolution). The bit in my soldering iron is double ended so I filed on end to be the cutter and the other I filed smaller to make neat round holes.
I was recommended this Gutterman
thread by my sewing machine shop - and it seems to have done the job
fine. I think so long as it's 100% polyester and isn't too thin
everything is going to be fine. Don't use plain
cotton - it's not very strong and is very thin - not the sort of thing
to use in kites.
I wondered about the colours - should I match the thread colour with the sail fabric, but in the end I decided this was way too difficult, so I simply went for white and black thread.
A sharp knife is essential to
cut the ripstop panels to size. Some people recommend hot cutting
everything to stop frayed edges - I decided against this as I didn't
have the space to hot cut large panels. Also I had read that if you
glue the panels first, then sew (even with simple seams) the fraying
effect is less. Obviously time will tell on the kites I have made on
this one.
I bought this knife especially for making kites, but I have to say a normal Stanley knife should do the trick just as well. So long as it's sharp....
A lot of kite makers don't use glue as it can
gunge up the sewing machine. However as I have found out it is so
much easier to glue the panel seams before sewing. The problem I found
was that the 2 pieces of fabric would move whilst sewing, whereas when
they are glued they, er, don't move.
I have experimented with which glue is best - I found the All Purpose solvent type worked best. The stick glue was useless, as was the wood type glue (I used both of these when I had run out the All Purpose stuff - with poor results!) and there is no way I'm going to try superglue.......
I was cheap when I bought this and only got the
60cm one - a 1m ruler is much, much better! So long as it's metal,
straight and has dimensions marked on it's going to be good. Having
said that I did end up using a clear plastic 12cm ruler as well in
order to measure some of the seam allowances.
One thing to watch is not to drop the sharp pointy end onto the fabric - surprisingly it makes a hole.....
A soft (& sharp!) pencil is needed to
mark out the panel patterns (and to label which bit is which). With the
Papillon I tried the dress making chalk to do the
marking, but found that it rubbed off too easily when stitching.
The only problems I have found is that the pencil marks of the seams can sometimes still be seen (I forgot to erase them), and on dark fabrics (like the purple I used on the Papillon) the grey of a pencil doesn't show up.
Useful when making the card
templates and checking the kite to ensure that you have got all the
measurements correct.
I have decided that a set square (in order to get perfect right angles) would also be useful - something I will get for the next kite project.
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