riffclown

Bridle test successful. Very well behaved kite..

Personally I want my kites able to bowtie.. I intentionally bowtie them for a half-turn and landing.. I call it the inverted Kip landing. That being said, like others, I don't like it to happen accidentally. I took the reverse approach and intentionally induced it until I got the break point pretty close. It not only helped with a few new moves but also made my inverted side slide much more stable. The link between you and the kite is always fixed. With minor variations based on winds/conditions, no matter what you want the kite to do, it will blindly obey only what your hands tell it to do.

Definitely some possibilities!!!!

Makes me very very angry.. Playing around with some of the scraps.

Either is an option with me since i make my own frames too.. I did lengthen the bungees and allowed the vertical spars to come over the LE a bit but you'd be surprised at how much I trimmed from the top.

OK, I gave the situation time to rest and decided by backing off some of the techniques I usually use near the leading edge (Double Fold, lashing down the uprights tighter.) and leaving out the camber, I could make this sail fairly close to my original intent. The verts are a little tight (which means I'll trim the final frame 1/4" to make this work. It's not perfect but one I'll gladly fly when conditions warrant.. Normal bridles will work just fine and I have those already tied and ready to install. Flying video soon I hope.

I'll shout, I told you so.. Glad you made it.

I understand.. Still comtemplating a way to resurrect this build..

Disaster happened. I start to work on fixing the pucker and marked the relief area. I then dragged the kite towards me not realizing I had my cutting wheel under it... This sail is ruined.. I may remake into a B2 size or something but this sail will not be finished in its present form. Worst case it may still be a flag. I've separate the sail from the leading edge but I''ve lost nearly an inch and a half of height from the overall sail. The sad nature of the diamonds pattern is, repair is far from straightforward as the process to make the diamond pattern stacks every cross-point differently. I'm weighing options at this point.. I'll be shelving the project until I decide how I want to proceed. The irony is the sail started as scraps. this might be the one time that goes full circle.

Definitely ran into a few issues finishing this kite. I missed a row on my design and the kite ended up slightly off from my desired dimensions.. I added flares to compensate but ended up with a pucker in the center of the LE as it threw off my camber. I'll trim that out this evening. They aren't all perfect you know.. Edge binding is all flo yellow.

Exactly..

The Rev forum has been pretty quiet as of late. Your post was the first post this year and possibly since late November IIRC.. Welcome to KiteLife.. Pretty active community here..

More extensive Z-Rays (zig zag) reveal the stitching on the pan el is done. Getting there!!!

White LE with White stitching under black light.. the thread shows up much better than the Dacron.

No, not on this kite.. this kite will react to black light but it's not a dedicated night kite.. I have another one of those in my head. And I hope to include UV/Black lights embedded in the Leading Edge to light up the kite.

I've been asked about what I use to do particular things for kite making. Thought it'd be a good opportunity to share a quick overview of pretty much everything I use. Some are more obvious than others. My kite making tools.. I use a sewing machine (obviously) 2 - 6' Long Metal rulers 2 - 3' Long Metal Rulers 1 - 18" Ruler (metal) 1 - 12" Ruler (metal) A Fiskars Rotary cutter. A Paper Cutter (Office Style) The normal assortment of Scissors (Including a heavy duty pair for cutting plastic) Masking Tape, Double-Sided Tape, A Dremel tool for cutting spars and these two pieces of Lumber. All my strips, diamonds, LE, Mesh etc are made on these two boards.. One is also my updated Bridle Board. The other board is my full template for LE's (including Fold protection and wear strips. I have another marked out 72" LEs and another for 96" LEs. I also have an industrial style metal hole punch I use to punch the holes for the bungees. These tools are pretty much the entirety of what I use to make a kite.

So LE will be white, Stitching will be white.. The White Thread lights up a nice zig zag on the LE under black light. Weighing my options for Edge Binding.

Good Work. Building those foundations..

I'm pretty partial to the Freilein 15" snagless but I really don't mind converted Rev handles, snagless Rev Handles or similar as long as they don't come across as too short, too straight or unequal to the other..

Perhaps your topic is a great place to put some footage of the requested types. Here are some vids of many quad line tricks. Here's a few i had bookmarked already Flic Flac Axel Traveling Bicycle Falling Leaf Rollover Landing Water Flying Axel (in slow Motion) More Water Flying. Flic Flac (upright and inverted) I know there's more out there..You have but to look..

Granted it's a very old link but the tutorials are kinda timeless. Some of the videos have been there a while but they are probably still the best source for what you specifically asked. They cover: Traveling Bicycle 3D Flying Flic Flac Clockwork Axel Reverse Flying Water Flying as well as other basic and more advanced flying concepts. Here's a preview of the flic flac video from Kitelife's Youtube page KiteLife Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/kitelife/

I only have one "barefoot in the sand" spot that works from all directions but it's a 2 hour drive for me. Great place to fly but requires planning. I agree it's hard to beat barefoot in the sand flying. "Barefoot in the sand unable to fly due to swirling winds" is not a close second. Flying always ranks higher to me than "not flying" Sometimes, you'll have a spot that's perfect flying but for one wind direction only. You'll start looking for that direction just to fly there.. The Beach is almost impossible to beat for onshore winds. But as you said resort areas and condos tend to block anything other than onshore on down the beach.. In NC though, the Outer Banks have a beach side for on shore winds and a sound side with some pretty cool flying spaces for when the wind is on shore from that direction. In this video, location is sound side with the wind coming off the water behind us. John and Scott from TKL playing over the water.

Not that I know of, but John's tutorials cover a pretty wide range from basics to advanced flying and tricks like flic flacs, axels etc..

If you are fortunate and have multiple locations close by, pick a few places you can fly based on wind direction.. You'll almost always one flying spot better for a certain direction than others. My water fountain spot for instance is only good for south to west. Anything much beyond that and I just go somewhere else.