riffclown

It looks great.. Nice work.. Welcome to the new obsession!!!

The leading edge assembly is complete. Decided on both Black and White for this LE.. Sleeve is White, everything else is black. Hopefully can attach to the kite this week and have ready to fly next weekend..

It looks great.. What material is the center panel?? is it the Dyneema Fabric??

Both Mesh panels are sewn, Center is sewn. Center is not yet attached to the wings but that will be the next step. Now to align everything, trim to standard and edge bind.. Insert diamonds will be last step before assembly and attaching to LE. My workable solution was to take the screen from an old projection television and use it to lay the first panel flat. It allowed me to match the second panel very well since the screen was translucent and held everything below it very well.

@mrfaosfx Beautiful work.. I use several similar techniques on my full sails and diamond constructions. The meshes are usually basically square and present little issues.. Making a diamond shaped mesh however gives me a much higher skew angle when not under tension .. I'm mitigating by pinning down to a surface and blue taping much as you described. Since I'm dealing with already hemmed edges for the strips, hot cutting and back cutting not very practical for my particular application.. As much as I'd love to buy in, no shortcuts for this kite. I found a workable solution. Seam tape will only be used for the panel inserts and final assembly.

About 25% done on the sewing. Sewn portions are marked with stars in the second pic. Left half of this image is photoshopped (mirrored from the right) to show the end goal.. Successful in staying flat so far.. The solid panels have not been sewn in yet. Only the mesh. The center panel is complete. Hoping to finish the taping tonight and sewing this weekend. This should be ready to fly before Christmas..

Definitely an option if i was just starting on this one but I'm far too far down the road now to change lanes. Perhaps on a future project. FWIW, scrap on this one so far has been nearly nil. The snowflake on Winter Jacket is the closest I've come so far to applique and that one isn't back cut. I'm a little more into the riffclown method. To adapt other's techniques extensively would run the risk of impinging on their stuff. I want my kites to be unique to me. So far that's working. I have far too much respect for Eliot, Randy, Bazzer and others. I like the Hadziki Wing design, the Eliot Shook old style LE and my own refinements in rigging and framing. Beyond that I don't mind doing it the hard way.

Just mocking this up is proving quite challenging. This is by far more difficult than any other kite I've worked on.. One panel is partially assembled and taped but not sewn. The inserts are not in place yet. Keeping this sail flat for sewing and assembly is going to be an absolute bear.

I've done a few of those.. Because this particular fabric comes in one color, I think the kite will too..

Two ways.. -One is just ask.. (I took care of it for you ) -The other is to edit your original post and just change the subject.. It's not something you want to do very often because things can get rather fragmented for other folks following a topic.

The pattern in the center of this one will be the panel.. No accents on this one except for the stitching... The pattern is busy enough I want to keep it completely clean..

SHHHHH!! @DTill Positive no ill intent was there.. The secret is not your first kite.. The secret is, "Is your latest one better than the one before?" As long as that answer is "yes" OR you are learning from the experience then you are making progress. Build it, fly it, learn from it and build the next one better. There will always be critics. Keep in mind EVERY ONE of those critics only knows what you've told them and they've only seen what you've shown them. Ignore the critics and listen to your own self evaluation. Send your kite to a friend who's flying you respect and ask them for their honest opinion. You don't owe anyone anything and I personally am very glad you've started this adventure. I've had a blast and you are on the same path.. Keep it up. Your first one looks far more professional than my first one. I had no pattern and no Rev or other Hadziki Wing to base my design on. Every kite you make has something to teach you. Not every one will be your showcase kite. I look at a few of my early efforts and wonder how they flew at all. FWIW, I still have my first mesh made from tails.. DUCT TAPE reinforcements and all.. As for the design and a little sag, you'll be surprised at how forgiving the sail design is. Finish it up, try it out and learn what it looks like and acts like from 90' away when it's backlit by the sun.. A little sag or a stitch mistake won't show from there. Be willing to make mistakes, you'll learn something new from each and every one of them.

I'd have to agree.. i like the diamonds look. I started playing with the layout and used the two strip widths to skew the vertical pattern a bit.. The diamond panels can now mitigate the wear strips and give me a solid pattern vertically. It aligns the solid material with the spars. The center panel in this Photoshop mock-up will be a throwback to my diamonds patterns as well emphasizing the front side and backside of this fabric. One side is shinier that the other and depending on the light angle, looks either very dark blue or almost black. This is one where the entire pattern will have to be laid out flat and basted before doing any sewing.. A true mashup of both designs . The Diamonds have to be fully basted before sewing, the mesh kites have different requirements but this kite will need to have all the techniques done at the same time to keep the sail flat.

Started hemming some more strips. Starting with 2' Wide finished width and the 1.2 finished width I used on the Snowflake kite (Winter Jacket).. I'm thinking I'll experiment with orientation a bit more this time. Still using the Challenge PolyMax for this venture.. Great fabric without the cost of Icarex. I was able to choose from the wide variety of one color.. The key point here is if the experiment is a failure, it's not an expensive one. This image is about 80% Photoshop with just the base mesh and diamond filler panels in place for one side.. Then mirrored and a center panel drawn in to give me a bit of an idea of what it will yield. Opinions please?? Should I? build this, Go diamond Mesh without the filler panels something entirely different (suggestions are welcome.)

Icarex will hold the crease better than Ripstop Nylon but both will hold a crease. Dacron is in general tougher to fold but really holds the crease. Good thing too, if it din't it would be very hard to keep it in alignment for the leading edge sleeve. The principles of folding the crease are pretty much the same. more effort required for some materials. a lot less pressure for delicate materials.. FWIW,Some fabrics just will not hold a crease and I'm not sure what techniques work best for them . I just don't use them for the most part (personal choice.)

If you are using 2" tails for the mesh, why not use 1" tails for your edge binding.. I've used a lot of ribbon tails to accomplish this task personally.. a 30' ribbon tail is usually less than $8. Either way you have options.. Agree with @Paul LaMasters that this is not the place for Dacron. The additional strength and weight creates almost as many issues as it solves.. Icarex or .75 Nylon will do the job nicely and relatively inexpensively. Given your color scheme, Orange would be a nice look.

Tuesday Afternoon in 7-8MPH.. kite did well. It took a bit more effort but, this sail IS flyable sub-10MPH without too much extra work.

My first several kites did not have the edge binding at all. I still don't edge bind at the top BUT Edge binding will give you a cleaner look. I did have the screening on all but one kite so far.

I recognize a few kites there.. The misfits look familiar too.

@makatakam Thank you.. To be honest, this one surprised even me..I was kind of thinking you might be right in the ballpark for the wind range. Personally, I was hoping optimistically for something as low as 15MPH minimum but as you can see from the video, it really wasn't sluggish even in the 8-12mph range. Definitely a keeper.

Looks nice..Looks very well done and should be quite airworthy. And for the Challenge PolyMax, it's in clearance.. https://www.flymarketkites.com/clearance/ https://www.flymarketkites.com/clearance/34-oz-navy-blue-ripstop-polyester

Latest Mesh made from Challenge PolyMax. Winds 8-12MPH A couple of Still from the video..

Winter Jacket First Flight Video. Overall pleased with this sail.. Pretty much raw footage.. Sped up setup and take down.. Winds 8-12 MPH