How to Make a Roller Kite
Spars
For this roller, you also need two 30 cm (12 in.) bamboo BBQ skewers for the
horizontal spars. The photo shows all the spars laid over the sail, before being snipped to length with scissors.
- Lay down the glued vertical spar over the center crease of the plastic, with the tip of the longer
skewer over the top corner of the plastic as in the photo. Snip the
bottom end of the spar to length, so it lines up with the bottom corner
of the lower sail.
- Lay down another skewer across the left and right corners of the upper
sail, and snip to length, removing the point. Also make an easily seen
mark on the skewer at the exact center point. This is the upper horizontal spar.
- Using a sharp corner, perhaps a blade of the scissors, make an indent in the bamboo, at the center point you marked.
- Do those last two steps again, over the widest part of the lower sail, to create the lower horizontal spar.
How to Make a Roller Kite
Attaching Sail
- Lay down the vertical spar over the sail, and wrap a short length of clear sticky tape around each tip, securing them to the top corner of the upper sail and the bottom corner of the lower sail. The photo shows the top tip in closeup.
- Lay down the upper horizontal spar skewer and attach its tips to the upper left-and-right corners of the sail, in the same way.
- Lay down the lower horizontal spar skewer and attach its tips to the left and right corners of the lower sail.
- Fold down the flaps over the lower horizontal spar, and secure with three short strips of tape on each side. In the photo, I have drawn yellow rectangles to show where the tape goes.
- Bend the upper horizontal spar in the middle, until it starts to crack at the indent! Carefully increase the bend until each wing tip stays at 0.06 SL (1.7 cm, 3/4 in.) off the tabletop.
- Do the same for the lower horizontal spar. This time, the tips should be about 0.10 SL (2.9 cm, 1 1/8 in.) off the tabletop.
- Dribble some wood glue all around where the skewers cross each other, for both horizontal spars. See the bottom photo up there. Use enough glue to make the bent part of the bamboo strong.
Be careful that the horizontal spars don't slip up or down the vertical spar while the glue is still wet.
How to Make a Roller Kite
Sail Tethers
Dacron line in 20 to 50-pound strength is suitable for all the Skewer Series kites.
- Cut off a piece of flying line of length 0.75 SL (22 cm, 8 in.). Tape one
end to a corner of the upper sail, as in the photo. See how the tape
points to the tip of the lower horizontal spar. Excess tape can be
trimmed with scissors or folded back on itself.
- Pass the other end of the line around the tip of the lower
horizontal spar. Pull most of the slack out and tie off with a couple of
Half Hitchs. Using the Half Hitch makes them easy to unpick and retie later, if any adjustment is needed to make the kite fly straight.
- Repeat the previous steps on the other side of the kite.
- Snip off some of the excess line if you want to, but leave enough for adjustment purposes.
The kite should now look like 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.
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