Cheap Kites

Material Costs For Every MBK Skewer Kite

Just for fun, I thought I would demonstrate that MBK designs are indeed very cheap kites to make!

The first step was to visit the local stores where the original materials were bought, and note down some prices. Of course, prices shift around from week to week, and also from store to store for the same product. However, the Australian Dollars figures below should be approximately correct for late 2008. Even the equivalent prices for U.S. products should be in the same ball-park.

The cost of flying line is not included, since we use just 2 or 3 lines shared between all our kites. Also, 100 meters (300 feet) of kite line from a shop costs much more than any MBK skewer kite!

With generic brand products available, some of these items can vary a lot in price, but I have gone for the cheapest in every case. That usually meant the generic brand, if available. Some were on Special too, but in those situations I used the original price. That was so the final figures for these cheap kites were as realistic as possible.

The Materials Unit Price

From the supermarket price for each item, a unit price was calculated. This figure makes it easy to estimate what any given kite actually costs to make.

Have you ever made cheap kites in a workshop for kids or interested adults? If so, note that the more plastic kites that are made, the more accurate these costings will be since a bigger percentage of the bought material will be used up. Even if all the info here is not entirely relevant to your own situation, you might like to go through a similar process one day when costing your own kite-making activities. For instance, if you live in the U.S., there will be differences in all the products and prices.

The above table was compiled mainly from info gleaned from the shelves of a local supermarket and variety store here in Adelaide, South Australia.

VERY Cheap Kites!

Here's proof, in the form of total cost for every kite made so far - and a couple that I hadn't even got to making at the time of this writing!

Just before I list the numbers, I thought it might be useful to show a detailed costing, to show the process. Cheap kites don't come much more inexpensive than the 1-Skewer Diamond Kite. It's pretty small and simple.

1-Skewer Diamond Kite Costing

Sail: 2 sails can be made from 1 large freezer bag. Unit price for the bags is 1.8 cents per bag, so one sail costs 1.8 / 2 = 0.9 cents.

Reinforcement: All together, about 95 cm of sticky tape are needed to secure the sail to the spar ends, and reinforce the sail edges. Unit cost is 0.02 cents per cm, so all up cost for tape is 95 x 0.02 = 1.9 cents.

Spars: 2 bamboo skewers are required. Unit price for skewers is 1.4 cents per skewer, so 2 skewers cost 1.4 x 2 = 2.8 cents.

Spar Attachment: Let's assume 0.1 ml of glue is used to fix the spars together where they cross. Unit price is 2.2 cents per ml, so that's 2.2 / 10 = 0.2 cents.

Tail: A single bag is used for all the loops in the tail. So that's 1.8 cents.

So, one of these nifty little diamond kites will set you back a total of 0.9+2.8+1.9+1.8+0.2 = 7.6 CENTS. Isn't that amazing! Even if you took no care with prices, the 1-skewer diamond would probably still come in at less than 30 cents. Very cheap kites!

In a similar way, I have costed all the other MBK kites in both the 1 and 2-Skewer series. Here are the results, from cheapest to most 'expensive' (!), rounded to the nearest cent:

Some notes on these results...

For practical purposes, there's no point in calculating the sail area of each kite precisely. That's because you can't use all the off-cuts can you! So, the cost is based on how many sails you can get from a single bag.

If you are super-stingy you might find ways to use all the off-cut material! If nothing else, it would leave you with the warm feeling that absolutely nothing has been wasted. :-)

In fact, here's an idea: Cut the off-cuts into odd shapes, and then tie them at regular intervals along a long narrow ribbon. The ribbon could be cut from another bag of the same material. Fluttering around in the air, this tail wouldn't look that much different from one done with perfectly rectangular cross-pieces.

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Last updated: 1 Sep 2009