riffclown

It's appreciated.. Sometimes the simplest solution is just overlooked. Most events I attend , I have any number of kites with me.. I literally fill up the pickup truck..

I've thought about that but the approach doesn't work as well for me as it would still be 6 ft long.. I'm currently undoing one LE Spar and folding the kite over on its face.. That seems to be working pretty well, fits in my bag and is easy to transport in my vehicle.. (FWIW, I tend to pack heavy, "VERY heavy.")

As many of you know I like not only the B2/Rev II size leading edge, but also the Regular 1.5 Leading Edge size, and, a 97.5" Leading Edge (3 32.5" Spars) On the other hand, I don't care to cut spars any more than needed. (thus my affinity for the 97.5 LE) After a bit of measuring and calculation today I confirmed that cutting a 9" Center Spar off my 32.5" P4X's and adding Ferrules to both ends of those gave me the Verticals I needed for my stack but also allowed me to Frame the LE without any further cutting. The 9" Center plus 2, 32.5" spars gave me a nice 74" LE and the ability to move those around for different wind conditions with P2X 32.5 Spars.. It opens up the possibilities without cutting every single spar to B2/RevII lengths.. Granted I have to fold the kites differently but I had planned for that already with a Z-Fold type arrangement. That's why my bag probably seemed kind of long to most trained eyes.. I'll cut one (or maybe even 2) P8x Spar(s) into 3 10.5" pieces so I can use Rev length spars in the mix as well and have a very stiff center section without the total weight tradeoff a full P8x LE would demand. It's not quite the @Paul LaMasters totally modular approach with travel frames but I'll save a bit of the tradeoff weight by having fewer ferrules.. Now I have lots of framing options and interchangeability between my different sized quads.

I had a very cool experience today. I'm sitting in a local food court having lunch with my wife and the UPS driver walks by (delivering to one of the embedded shops no doubt.) A few minutes later he walks back by and tells me, "Hang on a minute, I have a package for you. You neighborhood is on my route today." He walks out to his truck and emerges a few minutes later with my box of kite spars in hand..This driver also knows me because he also delivers packages to me at work. He drives by my flying field and has offered to deliver there if he has anything for me which you know of course would be just dandy with me.... He often remarks at how light my packages always are. So the short version of this story is, I have an awesome UPS driver & I can finish the Spectrum Stack framing today.

The Revolution (or other 4 Line kite) you should be thinking about is called an OPK. It stands for Other People's Kites. I'm sure there is a current quad-head in your area or within a somewhat reasonable distance.. Meeting with them for a few hours and flying their kite with a bit of friendly instruction from them will save you Money, Time and in the long run will give you the ability to answer your question from the most authoritative source... You.. Sharing of kites in an indispensable privilege we all share. It will also afford you the opportunity to fly a kite already tuned for the conditions, further honing your interest and helping your selection process in ways you can't imagine.. A few words of warning and wisdom though.. As you probably already know, "Kite" is not a word often spoken in singular form. Nor is "quad" or "Rev." One will NOT be enough..

Welcome to the addiction..

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.

The Spectrum Stack really needed a bag. I usually make bags for my kites from the same tails I make the kites from.. It just makes it easy to know what's in the bag that way.. I decided to try something new to me using a strip left from the 96' and the scraps cut from the leading edge.. Definitely representative of what's in the Bag. The black material is the taffeta cheapie stuff FS #1 was made from. All of the color is from the Spectrum Stack Kites..

No such thing as too many kites AND We still talk about you..

added 5 More home mades to the original post...

Welcome to the forum.. Many of us will remember our first kite.. The one almost ALL of us wants to remember is our NEXT kite!

Thank You.. I have to decide what spars I'm willing to cut to frame this set. I don't have any extra B2 Frames. I don't like cutting Rev or Skyshark spars because as soon as i do i end up needing what I cut later. Got my small box from OSK yesterday with the parts I needed to finish these sails..Enough materials for 16 kites.. The Current 5 plus the next 11..

Finished Sails for 5 Kites from one 96' Rainbow Transition Tail today. Will finish the Endcaps, Bungees and custom Skyshark frames this week. Hopefully first flight will be at the Wright Kite Festival in 2 weeks. It's where I flew my first home made 2 years ago. These kites all have 72" LE sleeves and will use 74" LE. I'm still considering putting a vertical black stripe on the center of each sail.

I guess that is 5 kites in a week. That's a record for me.. Thank you for the kind words.

Bungees, Caps and Framing remain.. Sails are completed.. I MAY just have to bridle all of these.. I like the idea of a stack but I also like the idea of separate kites as well.

Congratulations.. Kitelife has lots of instructional videos available.. http://kitelife.com/video-tutorials/#index Start at the top and work your way down. They are ALL relevant.. The dive Stop is honestly just a generous and controlled application of the brakes. Work on maneuvering the kite upside down and you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. The spars in the back thing is a common first mistake.. We'll laugh WITH you this time..

Leading Edges are DONE!!!

I understand. My response was sincere and you were right on there being slightly less purple than the other colors. Just the way the tail colors fell.

To completely balance it out there should be one more kite but not enough material. I have just over 3 feet of tail left and it's mostly the indigo. 7 colors over 5 kites was already a bit of a challenge. Good spot on the progression of colors. I did rush the spectrum a bit on the last panel to get more purple there. I could add a touch more but it isn't a significant enough amount to warrant resewing the panel.

Here's the panels as they are at the moment. Did not want to give the impression they were near a finished state. Just close enough to mockup and get an idea of what they will eventually look like.. Spent the Evening making Leading Edges for all of them. This MIGHT be ready by the Wright Festival.. These 5 are the only kites I'm working on at the moment.. as always, that's subject to change on a whim..