National Kite Month Is Coming!! — How To Easily Make An Awesome Kite

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PassionDig

5 min readMar 30, 2017

April is fast approaching and that can mean only one thing…ITS NATIONAL KITE MONTH!!

Here at PassionDig, we love to be creative and put passion into everything we do. This includes making fun things from scratch. As April is fast approaching, we wanted to find and let you know about an easy way to make an awesome kite.

Flying a kite is a fun, inexpensive, relaxing activity that you can do alone or with friends and family. Also, to see something you created fly so gracefully is a reward in its own.

Here is how you can achieve this beautiful little dream of letting your creation sore.

The Delta Kite

Measuring The Sail

Position your plastic bag on a flat surface, with the closed end at the top.
Begin just below the top-left corner of the bag, measure and mark 3 dots on the plastic (See the 3 yellow dots on the image). Judge the horizontal direction by eye. If careful, there’ll beno need for a T- square.

Cutting The Sail

Connect the dots with a dark marker pen (See image below)
Flip the plastic over and trace over all the black lines.

Cut along the top and right side of the bag, and open it out to show the complete sail outline, as in the image above.
Take your scissors and cut along all the black lines (As in the image below). Your Delta kite sail is nearly ready!

Adding The Spars

Take some 5mm (3/16") dowel and cut off a 70 cm (28 inch) length. Lay this down the center line of the sail.
Cut off 2 more lengths, each 80 cm (32 inches) in length. Lay these down over the leading edges of the sail.
Using 6 pieces of insulation tape, each 5 cm (2 inch) long, stick them down in the positions shown in the top left photo, above.
Fold all the tapes around to the underside of the plastic. See the top right photo, above.
Cut off a 70 cm (28 inch) length of dowel and lay it across the sail, 31 cm (12 1/4 inches) from the nose. Using 2 pieces of insulation tape, each 20 cm (8 inches) long, lay them over the crossing points (See the image below).

Carefully wind the tapes around the dowels, without getting them stuck to the sail. Now, each join should look like the image below.

Add an extra tape to the middle of each leading edge, to help keep the sail in place. Also tightly wind an 8 cm (3 inch) piece of tape around the spar join (See the image below).

Attaching The Flying Line

Get your flying line. A 30 pound line from a kite shop is perfect for the delta kite.
Poke a hole in the plastic sail, right over where the horizontal and vertical dowels cross each other.
Thread the flying line through the hole, wrap around the vertical spar at least 3 times, then tie it off tightly. Do NOT tie the line around the horizontal spar. This dowel floats free while the kite flies.

Attach The Tail

From spare scraps of sail plastic, make up a long narrow strip no shorter than 4 times the length of the kite itself. The strip should be about 5 cm (2 inches) wide.
Thread one end of the tail around the bottom of the vertical spar, as you can see in the photo. Tie the tail to the dowel with a simple knot.

Voila! You’ve successfully made your Delta Kite and it is ready to fly!

Look out your window. Are the leaves dancing? Are the trees swaying? Then it is time to go out and play! Step outside your house, breathe in that fresh air and let the wind whisp you away to your adventure in the sky!

Something to note: If it is very strong wind then this might not be the best for this kite. If the kite isn’t staying up, try releasing more string, giving it extra length.

We hope you enjoyed making this Delta kite and have a wonderful National Kite Month!

Pursue your passions every day, no matter how big or small.

“A life without passion is like a kite with no wind.” — C.Banks