Midnight Squadron » Kite Tips

Some Tips for Working With Icarex

chrooke — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 02:36:39 +0000

Icarex is a 1/2 oz/yd fabric that makes for very light kite sails. It’s not the easiest stuff to work with, however. Here are a few things I discovered about Icarex:

It’s very sensitive to the tension setting on the sewing machine. Testing on scraps and adjusting is a must.
Needle holes do not self-seal, so once you’ve punched a hole, it’s there. Use a small diameter needle, and make as few mistakes as possible.
It handles more like paper than cloth. It’s fairly stiff, so it’s hard to keep lined up and flat under the needle while bundling up the excess kite sail that isn’t getting stiched. Again, practice helps a lot.
It’s slippery and does not take to adhesives well. You can use a little bit of water and get two parts to stay together nicely long enough to sew, but don’t put too much strain on them. Spray adhesive tends to leave marks. Pins leave the holes. Glue doesn’t really stick. Melting methods are more reliable.
I did have some success ironing Icarex, using a very low setting on the iron and keeping the iron moving. Be very careful.

My best advice for Icarex is practice, practice, practice. Even though it’s expensive, buy a little extra and get used to it.

Bamboo Sources (Mini & Small Kites)

Complex — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:08:54 +0000

From the 2009 AKA Convention:

A bamboo wok-scrubbing brush (© Ms. Tane Chan, the Wok Shop, licensed GNU Free Documentation License, 1.2 or later)

Bamboo for mini kites can be shaved from anything, but what the instructor was using was a wok-scrubbing brush. He’d cut off a bristle, shave it down to the tiniest slivers, um, shave them down some more, and maybe massage their bend. He used magnifying goggles & a box cutter. (The box cutter was common, from their local hardware chain, but its blade didn’t wiggle side to side like the cheap Home Depot ones do.)

The 6th grade teacher giving the Korean fighter -making class used a lot of window blinds. Roman window blinds — the kind that looks like a placemat, with a lot of slats or sticks connected by a weave of string — are apparently great resources. He cuts the entire blind to the desired length and then just pulls out the sticks. He mostly used round-stick blinds, which provided sticks longer and maybe thinner than bamboo skewers, but also used used flat-stick blinds for a horizontal spar.

Kite Tips

Complex — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:42:18 +0000

Give advice and read advice about flying, making, and enjoying kites.

All helpful info is welcome here.