Re-winding Kitelines

by Tony Sangster
(Adelaide, SA, Australia)

Several of members of Adelaide Kite Flyers have been pondering how to best rewind our lines at the end of a long day. The last thing you wish to do is stand for ages reeling in and winding up lines up to 100 metres length and varying from diameters relevant to say 40 lb to 1 ton breaking strain.

The current thought is to adapt a battery-operated hand drill to the spool, setting the drill up on a kite-carrier such as the SULO-type bins we use on the beach. The challenge is how to adapt the drill-winder to each different size spool and how to stop the line winding off the narrow spools. We have contemplated use of other spools apart from fishing ones - such as garden-hose reels as well though they are bulkier to carry about and some commercial ones where there is a hand-operated winder and line-guide.

The matter is a 'work in progress' but would be happy to hear of and share others' experiences and ideas.

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Glue to fix line winder?
by: Graham

Coincidentally I just found out my line winder had split after it fell onto concrete. It is a large blue plastic and ball bearing kite winder I bought in a street market near Bateman's Bay in New South Wales. It used to work beautifully with very long and tough line but can it be fixed? Would Araldite work? It is a very tough plastic... but sadly not as tough as I hoped. So I need to take better care!

(T.P. - how about plastic cement? Something that will weld the plastic itself rather than just sticking it together. Hobby stores will have small tubes of plastic cement, for constructing static models. Also, ask about adhesives at a hardware store.)

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Spools etc
by: Tim Parish

Just a couple of 'outside the box' ideas...

1. Near the end of the day, get everyone to lower all their kites to say half height. Then, the final reel-in (perhaps an hour later) will only be half as onerous :-)

2. If there are any kids around, get them to do some reeling-in 'for fun' ;-) Used to work with my 5-year old! At least until his arm got tired.

I fly my biggest Sled on 200 pound line and love the way the garden hose holder does the job of reeling-in. Was interested to hear you guys also use these. Perhaps the handles could be modified to a shorter radius. Kite line is much easier to bring in than an actual hose, so 'gearing up' to allow more comfortable winding at speed might be an idea.

My 2c...

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