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About this blog

Bringing my kite builds up to date with a bit of history on each kite.

Entries in this blog

Mesh # 1

My first attempt at a homemade kite. Made with Blue and Black Gomberg Skywriter Tails. LE is the Cheap Amazon Tails fabric and the stretch strips are Gomberg strips added later. Reinforcement points are Olive Drab Duct Tape. This kite was completed Summer of 2015 and first flew at the Wright Kite Festival in July 2015 I have comfortably flown this kite in 35+ MPH winds when others were giving up on flying...  

riffclown

riffclown

Kite Quilt

While this will never actually be made (I DON'T Have the skills to replicate the pattern like this.) I have started sewing the scraps together to make anpanel I can use fer anything from a kite to a kite bag.. I decided to flip and mirror i into a 9 panel layout just to mock up what it WOULD look like.

riffclown

riffclown

Group Photo

Hadn't taken the time to snap a photo of the kites I carry in my bag in a while.  

riffclown

riffclown

Gray III

Completed Gray III today and gave it a quick bridle check.. Due to the gustiness outside, I used very short lines and flew in the swirl of the building.

riffclown

riffclown

Gray Fade

Finished up this kite today and did a quick Bridle test.. Hoping for flight test this week.

riffclown

riffclown

FS#9 Purple Time

So I ended up downsizing the purple to a 72" LE due to a pucker in the fabric I couldn't overcome. I'm calling this FS#9 considering the Stack should probably be considered FS #4,5,6,7 & 8..

riffclown

riffclown

FS#10 Yellow

This one is a bit differently sized than my typical builds.. It is a 83.5" Leading Edge. Midway between the 1.5 and 2.0 sizes.. This will either be my new night kite or the middle kite in a future progressive stack. Temporary bridles at the moment since I've never tied bridles this size. ZERO wind but still started with a toss, followed by a ground catch..  

riffclown

riffclown

FS #3

This is my first kite with a PROPER Leading edge. As of this posting it has not flown but I expect it to fly similarly to FS#2 since it is truthfully its panel mate. The sail is a touch tighter than FS3.  Notice the white markers are offset between FS#2 & FS#3. Epected First Flight will be at the Wright Kite Festival in 2017

riffclown

riffclown

FS #2

FS #2 My first full sail and kite #1 out of the first Gomberg 96' Transition tail. This kite reused the LE from Tails and was intentionally a loose sail to induce flutter and explore some "artificail belly" While it performed OK I did have Eliot tighten the belly a bit befor the kite's debut at the Rogallo festival in 2017 First Flight was at the point at Whalehead. Video captured by Mike Klaiber and posted to his Peaks of Otter Facebook.. Thanks Mike.    

riffclown

riffclown

First Flight in despite no Wright

Woke up with a song in my head this morning.. "Let's Go Fly a kite! We'll see if i made them right even though the wind is light we'll keep them soaring throw launch the sail first time catching the air so fine. come, let's go.....Fly a kite..   Even though I wasn't able to make the Wright Festival today, I had to get out for a few minutes before the rain hit to get first flight in on these sails. FS #3, Mesh #6 and the Spectrum Stack have all fl

riffclown

riffclown

Doubled Up

While checking my second Rainbow Sail, I caught a glimpse of some very pretty colors when the fabric doubled up on me. I maximized the effect here to share.  While this will never be a kite this way due to needing two layers for everything, it's still a very cool color play that I thought I'd share with you.

riffclown

riffclown

Digging in the bag

So I came to a rude awakening yesterday.. Despite my best attempts, it's really hard to get all my framed quads in an easy configuration for travel.. Part of this is because I don't know how to leave ANYTHING behind..  Given that I've made a bunch of kites since my last outing to OBX, I decided to make a dig bag. I came up with a 11"x11"x44" pumpkin of a bag after visiting Joann's Fabrics this morning.. I picked up some Orange duck cloth and zippers that all combined with a tiedown strp I had ha

riffclown

riffclown

Diamonds, the final cut

The Diamonds kite was finished this morning.. Final touches, bridles and framing are all done.. Ready for a test flight when conditions allow..

riffclown

riffclown

Diamonds in the Sky

First Flight at the  Rogallo Festival, Nags Head NC for Touch of Blue, Scrapestry and Purple Fade... Winds less than 5MPH

riffclown

riffclown

Diamonds in the dark

Diamonds in the dark Decided I wanted to take my seaming technique to a feasible limit. Using the same materials as the Midnight Royal and Yonder, I went with a diamond pattern and worked it through nearly the entire sail yielding over 450 panels. Encouraged by the mock up, I pressed forward. Once the sides were nearly done I realized how much actual area I had lost with the 1/4' overlap.. i decided to wedge  some poly at the top to give it a bit of a retro look. Ready to join the center an

riffclown

riffclown

Diamonds Colorizer-Planning ahead

So I found an older colorizer over on GWTW and adapted it for the diamonds design.. It's not web based but gives me a pretty good idea of how I can set up my color schemes. Here are a few quick samples.      

riffclown

riffclown

Diamonds Center Cut

A quick couple of pics to share the center sections of all the current Diamonds projects. Plan is to do all the LE's tomorrow..

riffclown

riffclown

Diamonds and Updates

It's been a whiles since I added any entries to the blog but it not for lack of sewing kites. After Jester II I decided it was time for some new color chemes AND new fabric.. 22 YArds of Icarex in Black White, Silver and Gray followed soon after.. I decided to take a chance and make an offer on the scrap bin and received a good bit of the full spectrum of colors..A full sunset fade   was the first endeavor followed closely by  purple fade with several different shades of purple A

riffclown

riffclown

D Leading Edge

Added Leading Edges to Scrapestry and Purple Fade this morning..Touch of Blue Leading Edge was done last week and posted.  Sunset fade MIGHT be taking a different route to leave more camber and sail area. It may end up being more of a light wind kite for me..In short, there's a bit of sail there that is "extra" and I'm deciding if I want to leave it oversize or trim it down to standard 1.5 dimensions.

riffclown

riffclown

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