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Torrential downpours, silver lining!


hapes
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On Monday night, around 6pm, my area had a microburst.  Our driveway isn't exactly graded properly, so a ton of water came into the garage.  The garage is attached to a workroom and my office in the finished basement.  Let's just say I need new carpet, and new paneling.

However, in cleaning the workroom, my lovely wife made a discovery.  Back in like 1991 or 1992, she bought me a dual line kite (back when all I knew was the term stunt kite).  I flew it for a few years, then kind of dropped out of the kite scene because of whatever reasons.

I bet you can see where this is going.  It's a Griffin III, I think.  8 foot wingspan.  I put it together to see it's condition.  The sail looks to be in good shape.  The struts seemed to be solid, though I didn't actually test it.  I think the bridle lines are not in good shape, there was a powdery residue on them.  No water got near the bag, so there's no damage from that.  I'm excited to get it in the air again.  

20180705_200011-1328x747.jpg

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Flooding sucks. Glad it wasn't worse for you folks. The silver lining looks fantastic!! Very cool you've rediscovered something you've had for so long.Looks fast. American Kite Magazine says the Griffin should be in the hall of fame. Kite had 3 different frame  configurations. Which do you have?

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If you post some pics of the LE someone will know.If not here GWTW. There's a mod you can look up at GWTW for the standoff. Supposed to take out some of the risk of a puncture. I read that the heavier frame takes 7 to 8 to fly. 1 version is rated 3 to 25.Really like that color scheme. Man ANOTHER kite I got to read up on. When redoing your bridle someone has probably come up with a better one over time. Going to make my 1st bridle soon for a Psycho. Not sure yet if it'll be a 3 point or 4. I don't know enough yet so I had the bridle of my TOTL checked out at Into the Wind.Paul thinks it's okay. Got to learn though cause where you going to find these old bridles.

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From your picture, it looks like the Griffin 3-stripe, which would be the middle of the 3 versions, and framed in carbon fibre (Bemans?). The basic version (I still have mine!) was framed in something like J-65 fibreglass. Heavier! Floppier! Bullet proof! Needs about 7mph to get going!

The top end was the 5-stripe, done up in polyester (icarex?) cloth and wrapped rods, with a commensurately lower end in the wind range.

Your version may vary from this, however.

In any case a classic kite indeed, imo.

.

.

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On 7/8/2018 at 1:50 PM, hapes said:

Sounds right.  The rods are solid, not wrapped.  It's pretty heavy for a kite.  

I expect that the spars could well be some make of pultruded carbon tube, having clicked on your picture for a better view. If so, these are hollow: solid would be pretty darn heavy in an 8 foot kite. Pultruded is just 'somewhat' heavy.

Somewhere around there are interesting spar charts comparing size, weight, deflection, strength, etc of various types and makes of spars/rods/tubes. But I digress.

Often (but not always) there is a make, size or other info printed on one or more of the spars -- although perhaps an interior one not immediately visible. At any rate that might become relevant should you ever -- ahem -- excessively stress one negatively.

;)

.

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19 hours ago, midibot said:

excessively stress one negatively..

My rev spars have had several negative excessive stress events.  It's sad.  These are the "new" cheap-ass ones with the green ring near the labeling (not the green race rods, I haven't got those).  I'm going to Atlantic Beach, NC in August, first thing I do:  go to Kites Unlimited, get some NOT CRAPPY spars for my rev, and also see about fixing the bridle on this Griffin.

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