For this diamond, you need four 30 cm (12 in.) bamboo BBQ skewers. Also, you need to cut off four short 0.15 SL (4.4 cm, 1 3/4 in.) lengths of skewer. The photos show how these are all glued together.
One pair of skewers has the pointed ends raised up off the table, forming the horizontal spar.
The other pair are just lined up straight, flat against the table top, with a point at each end. This is the vertical spar. To make sure there is no kink at the join, get your head down low and look along the skewers. Shift one a little, if necessary, before the glue dries!
Dacron line in 20 to 50-pound strength is suitable for all the Skewer Series kites.
All the construction details for the bridle are contained in the large photo below. Look and read carefully, and you can't go wrong on this rather important bit! Just use Dacron line for the bridle pieces.
If you are new to this, you might need instructions on how to tie the following knots:
Loop knot
Double Wrap Slip knot
Prusik knot
TIP: Secure the slip knots onto the bamboo of the vertical spar with a tiny blob of wood glue, so they can't loosen.
ADJUSTMENT
Once your kite and bridle looks like the photo up there:
Hold the short bridle line up so all the bridle lines are straight, with the kite laying flat on the table or floor.
Referring to the diagram below, shift the Prusik knot to the shown position. It's not necessarily the perfect position for your individual kite, but it should at least fly on the first attempt! Later, you can experiment with shifting the position away from the nose a little at a time to improve how high your kite flies.
Cut out a long rectangular piece of dark plastic for the tail. Black garbage bag plastic works well. Make it about 0.3 SL (8.7 cm, 3 1/2 in.) wide and 8 SL (230 cm, 90 in.) long.
Tie one end around the vertical spar, as close as possible to the bottom tip. See the photo. A single Half Hitch will do, since there are very low forces on the tail in flight.
You can see the full length of the tail in the "Flying" photo on the next page.
At this point, you've finished making the 2-Skewer Diamond!
To attach the flying line, just Lark's Head the flying line to the short bridle line as in the photo.
As mentioned earlier, there's more kite making on this site than you can poke a stick at :-)
Want to know the most convenient way of using it all?
The Big MBK E-book Bundle is a collection of downloads — printable PDF files which provide step-by-step instructions for many kites large and small.
Every kite in every MBK series.