How To Make A Kite

27 Kites! Step-By-Step Instructions

If you want to learn how to make a kite or two, you have definitely come to the right spot! Perhaps you have made plenty, but are always on the lookout for more designs and ideas. In any case, some of the most popular single-line designs being flown in the Western world are covered here.

For example, there's the quick and easy Sled. The universally recognized Diamond. The bird-like Delta, which is nearly as well known, plus a number of others for even more of a building challenge.

The Barn Door is uniquely American.

All the designs have been well-tested! If you browse round this site a bit more, you'll find dozens of flight reports in which interesting things often happen.

(Note: MBK Skewer Kites are made from thin 12" bamboo skewers, which come in packs of 100. The Metric size is 300mm long x 3mm thick.)

The emphasis here is on very cheap materials. Make them all for just a few dollars!

Not only that, but hardly any tools are required. Who hasn't got a pair of scissors and a ruler lying around somewhere? Perhaps you might need to beg borrow or steal, I mean buy, a small hack-saw. But that's about it! No special fittings or expensive specialized tools.

Learning how to make a kite from bamboo skewers or dowel and plastic is fun and they do fly really well! You can see for yourself in the video for each design, showing the original in flight.

In addition, there are three Box kites.

These all fly well in moderate winds, and the 2-Skewer design can cope with much stronger winds as well...

• The Dowel Box Kite.
• The 2-Skewer Box Kite.
• The 1-Skewer Box Kite.

By the way, I recommend 50 pound flying line for the Dowel kites. Amazon's Stake Line Winder will do the job nicely, if you are in the USA or Canada. Dacron or Nylon are both good choices for flying single-line kites.

For the 2-Skewer kites, the 30 pound line is better. Eventually, you might want to find much lighter line for the 1-Skewer designs, since they struggle a bit if you have too much line out. Modern polyester sewing thread is quite adequate for these smallest kites.

More MBK Kite Info

For each kite in the table up there, plus the box kites, there is...

• A 20 second video of the kite in flight.
• A template graphic showing you the sail shape and dimensions.
• A detailed set of step-by-step instructions, with a photo for each step.
• A launch photo or an in-flight close-up of the kite.

Although this is quite basic kite making, the designs do get a little more complex and time consuming as you move from Sled right through to Dopero.

The 2-skewer designs have about 4 times as much sail area as the 1-skewer designs. Hence, it's easier to make them accurately. Plus, for any given sail material, a 2 skewer kite will be better in light breezes than a 1-skewer kite. The 1.2 meter Dowel kites are another step up again, with a roughly 4-fold increase in sail area compared with the 2-Skewer kites! However, the strength-to-weight ratio of hard-wood dowel is not as good as bamboo.

If you haven't made many before, I hope you really enjoy learning how to make a kite!

Have a bit of fun trying to figure out which of my kites is zipping around the sky in a gusty moderate breeze, in the video up there!

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