Building your own kite

[even1]

Hi. I am new to kite surfing and have just been a spectator so far. I am keen on making my own things and would like to know if anyone out there has done or knows of anyone who has built their own kite surfing gear. If so, I would like to discuss what materials they used, how they did it and what went right or wrong.

Eventually, I will be trying it and doing it so I thought getting our heads together about it would be beneficial to all who are interested.

Nic

[Jason]

Yes, in the early seasons there were a few who tried. In short building your own kitesurf kite is a waist of time.

I would stick to boards if your after a project.

[plummet]

nothing is impossible. but unless your a some kind of aerofoil engineer i doubt yourl be able to create anything close to resembling the current offerings you can buy off the shelf.

the other issue is getting all the right light weight materials etc. i can't see it being a cheap process.

BUT. by all means give it a go.

if you do pull it off it will be super sweet to shred on your own kite.

[SoutherlyBuster]

Well here are my comments, coming from some one that has built several kites.

I've built kites ranging from the simple stunt kites, to the large NASA para wing single skin kites (up to 8m) and even had a go of making a twin skin foil kite (3m^2).

For the single skin kites, like the NWPs you can get away with ordinary rip stop nylon and brickies line for the briddles (some may need to be doubled up for extra strength). That is how I build them, they do fly and occationaly I use them for traction kiting. These kites however are not suited for the water action, though I have tried just for a joke. If they fall in the water, it's game over, they act like a big fishing net except dont let the water pass through, you have to wrap it all up and go back to shore. So for kite surfing cross this one off the list.

Next come the foil kites. I've made a 3m^2 foil kite from oridnary rip stop nylon, was a plan from the Internet, the wingine site, the Junkie. Well it turned out to be too heavy and the plans did not include all the things you MUST change to have it fly. So this is still a project in work to get it to fly properly. It took me some thing like 8 months to build. So don't be fooled into thinking this is going to be a walk in the park to build one. You can speed a good year to make it and then it may not fly.

The proper cloth (Chicara or similar) can be sourced, but it's not easy and if you try and get it from your local kite store they will charge you an arm and a leg, ie 20$ per meter. So do the maths, you will be up for about 300$ just for the cloth --- you don't want this to fail. There are Internet sites that speciallise in kite and sail cloth and the prices are a lot better.

Designing your own. Well you need to understand several things to get it all to work:

1) Aerodynamics and the software to design it ---- commercial software is not cheap, writing your own (as I do) takes several years.

2) Structural design --- ie will the kite skin be stable or will it jusst collapse in a heap. Again commercial software is not cheap for this, think in the order of 20 - 30 k$ just to get you going. Even if you have the software, sail analysis is very challenging to you and the software, again not a walk in the park. This is comming from someone that does structural design through comuter modelling as my day time job.

3) Will the kite system by stable, ie can you depower it, can you turn it and will it just do a crazzy death spiral.

4) Safety aspects --- kites generate huge amounts of paper and must have safety systems other wise you could end up killing your self and possibly others.

My advise would be to buy a comercially designed and built kite for your kite surfing, learn how to fly it safely and have fun. Then if you're still keen try your hand at rolling your own, but be prepared for several failures and spending a lot of time in the design/build/testing process.

As Jason said, try making your own board, much more rewarding.

Regards,

Norman.

[Exarch]

get a piece of software called 'SurfPlan'

play with it, then just go and buy a kite

[koma]

get a piece of software called 'SurfPlan'

play with it, then just go and buy a kite

Bahahaha... best advice ever.

I too had a tinker with SurfPlan but couldn't get my head around even half of it.

[Exarch]

i found you play with one thing at a time, apply the changes and see what has changed.

i managed to get a delta - batwing 6 strut kite with no centre strut C kite yesterday.

i imagine it would have been a right C*&&^#$&^@#@#$#@$@#$$@#$@#ing B23@#$#@%^%$#$@&^%##$%@!#$@%$@#$ to fly

[koma]

i found you play with one thing at a time, apply the changes and see what has changed.

i managed to get a delta - batwing 6 strut kite with no centre strut C kite yesterday.

i imagine it would have been a right C*&&^#$&^@#@#$#@$@#$$@#$@#ing B23@#$#@%^%$#$@&^%##$%@!#$@%$@#$ to fly

If i ever get enthusiastic enough i'll have another crack at SurfPlan, but for the time being i don't even have enough time in the day to get all my work done and go fly a kite... so i'll stick with just flying a kite.

[SoutherlyBuster]

i found you play with one thing at a time, apply the changes and see what has changed.

i managed to get a delta - batwing 6 strut kite with no centre strut C kite yesterday.

i imagine it would have been a right C*&&^#$&^@#@#$#@$@#$$@#$@#ing B23@#$#@%^%$#$@&^%##$%@!#$@%$@#$ to fly

It's one thing playing around and having some thing on the screen the sort of looks right, it's another knowing it will fly properly. Point is you can spend a lot of time building it only to find it flies terribly. I have not looked at Surfplan, but I am guessing it only draws up the plans, no aerodynamic analysis, no stability analysis. And I think there are limits in the software if you don't buy it.

There is a yahoo group, FoilDesign, I visit from time to time. You might get some hints there. Actually a lot of them are snooping around for FlySurfer plans .... ha ha. ... they have not suceeded as yet.

Regards,

Norman.

[imjimbo]

i was going to buy a well/over used second hand one that is a proven flyer take photos and notes un pick all the stitching trace to dressmakers paper and start from there.. actually i think there is a thread on here somewhere that has exactly that done ... from memory it had a cartoon character on it ..

i havnt attempted a foil yet but i can get 20 bucks of bunnings buys and a garbage bag to fly on a single line in around an hour.... and the brikie line is perfect....

[SoutherlyBuster]

.....

[BobM]

... from memory it had a cartoon character on it ..

Calvin and hobbes

[pils]

I will keep you in the loop as to how the project is progressing. I need to calculate a few more design specs and do some aerodynamic testing in a wind tunnel.

[RALKITE]

i was going to buy a well/over used second hand one that is a proven flyer take photos and notes un pick all the stitching trace to dressmakers paper and start from there.. actually i think there is a thread on here somewhere that has exactly that done ... from memory it had a cartoon character on it ..

i havnt attempted a foil yet but i can get 20 bucks of bunnings buys and a garbage bag to fly on a single line in around an hour.... and the brikie line is perfect....

A good mate, Azza, did this way back and his kite became known as Frankenkite.

Didn't do it twice.

[BobM]

The Calvin and hobbes kite can be found at http://www.kj-kites.com/photo/photo.html

and

[knuth]

There are lots of kite manufacturers in china..

If you give them the design, they will build it for ya.