Best Paper Kite

[Leanne Wittlin]

Kitepaper can be just about any kind of paper, but making kites fly really well requires more than just ordinary writing paper. The main properties required are strength and lightweight. Gift wrap's not bad. Having said that, I'm going to touch on thewhole variety of paper used in modern kite-making.

Going back to at least the middle of the 1900s, kites for childrenwere available in shops. The bulk of these used paper for sail material.Although shop-bought kites now use mainly plastic or nylon, kite-makingworkshops for kids still often feature paper or tissue for sails.

The simple diamond is a common choice, since it is so easy tomake and is such a reliable flyer. The longer the tail, the morereliable :-) Rokkakus are often made of paper too. Another choice forthe more artistically minded is butterfly kites, which tend to be paleimitations of the real flying art-works from China.

Here, the range of options is pretty wide. For a kite with aframe, such as a diamond or rok, almost anything works to a degree. Aslong as it is not so porous that it lets air through! A perimeter linegoes around the tips of the spars, and the paper or tissue is madeslightly oversize. Hence, the sail can be folded over and pasted downaround the edges to help keep it flat and resist tearing.

Not surprisingly, this approach tends to result in ... minimum performance too, but that doesn't stop loadsof people enjoying the thrill of making something themselves and thenseeing it fly! Long tails are often required to keep the kites stable,and they won't fly at all in light winds since the paper and tape can berather heavy. Of course, kids can always tow them around to make them fly.

What's the most commonly available kind of paper on the planet?A4 or Letter-sized sheets of course, as commonly used for photocopying. These are too heavy for greatperformance but can be coaxedto fly as proven by the kite designs already mentioned. In fact, thepicture up there is our Minimum Sled design. It's crafted from a single sheetof A4 and precious little else!

Any reasonably thin and stiff type of paper could be tried andshould work to a degree. For example, wrapping paper, which could havesome great patterns preprinted on it. However, flimsy tissue or crepepaper would be less suitable.

Although kite-making tradition goes back 100s or even 1000s of yearsin various locations, modern kite-makers in Asia are still churning outlarge volumes of paper kites which are very faithful to ancienttraditions. Often, the kite paper and techniques used are virtuallyunchanged.

Andin the next photo you can see the whole train of traditional Taiwanesekites that we saw at the Adelaide Kite Festival one year. They are tissue paperand bamboo; all are attached to a single natural-material flying line.

Apparently, the art of hand-making extremely strong butlight kite paper originated in China before finding its way to Japan. InJapan, this "washi" paper is often created from the bark of mulberrytrees.

The final product is laminated from thin layers of fiber, one ontop of another. It's the long length of the fibers which gives the extra strength. Commercially-made paper created from wood pulp just can't compare!

Modern recreations of these kites workadequately well with tissue sheets from newsagents or gift shops. As long asthe tissue has relatively low thickness, weight, and stretch, it is fine.However, the Indian makers of the best fighters have their own specialsources for tissue paper.

Does this kite have spars or not? Well, it has vertical folds in the sail that provide some extra stiffness just like separate spars. So perhaps, technically, it does have spars! A bit unique, don't you think?

And yet, these small kites do have spars. But you make them yourself. By carefully following the instructions, the spars end up strong enough yet light enough to do the job for a particular type of kite. I've done all the hard work in tweaking it all to kite flight perfection.

This design was inspired by one of the old Allison Sled designs which used two wooden spars. Of course, the Paper Sled is a different size and uses just copier paper and sticky tape throughout. Even for the "sticks"!

This design floats down on its face in a stable fashion whenever the breeze drops below 12 kph or so. At the other end of the spectrum, the rok will stay in the air well into the fresh range of wind speeds.

Read about flying the rok in gusty fresh conditions over sand. Despite the beach setting, the wind was in turmoil due to buildings and terrain further down the beach, directly upwind. The kite coped though!

This is the most complex kite so far in the series. However, if you have made the Paper Diamond, all the techniques and processes are very much the same. It's just a couple more spars and somewhat more cutting to make the tails.

Despite a relatively simple overall appearance, this delta has more layering in the spars than the other kites. It took a lot of refinement to achieve an all-paper delta that ticked all the boxes: light enough, strong enough in all the right spots, and a just-right sail area that won't snap the thread below 30 kph of breeze strength!

Over 25 kph the kite starts to swish around dramatically from side to side. Be careful flying inland where thermal gusts can put a lot of strain on the thread. Smooth onshore winds down at a beach are safer.

Regarding durability, it must be said that a sewing thread flying line will often snap due to accidental snags. Despite being "strong" polyester. Curious dogs, tree landings, being caught on thistles and weeds and even on your own footwear are common causes for failure.

However, I have carefully designed and tested the kites to ensure that an in-flight breakage should be fairly rare. This is as long as you don't attempt to fly the kite in greater than moderate strength wind! That is, above 28 kph or 18 mph.

... were looking around for someone to do a How To Make A Newspaper Kite article. This was back in March 2021. Your's Truly got the gig :-) so I developed a rolled-paper-spar diamond for them. It has a span of about 48 cm (19 in.) and flies great on polyester sewing thread.

The designs are cheap enough to allow small kids to play with them, after construction by an adult or teenager. After the inevitable happens, it's easy enough to make an identical kite on another occasion. Actually, it gets quicker and easier on the second or third time round!

Joel, you're a doll! I always always always wanted to make a kite for my kids but thought you had to have a degree in ingeneering, at the very least, to accomplish such a complicated feast. But this seems easy! I guess all the other kite-builders just make it sound so incredibly hard so that they would have all the more credit for it. ;)

Hi

This might be a silly question, but how do you get the kite up in the air. I tried it with my kids and we could not get it up. Not that it really mattered to them, they just ran around with it. Just in future I would like to fly a kite.

HI Joel, great kite! on a recent windy day my 6 year old son and I made a kite with an old bandanna, some thick floral wire and tape. It was one of those "mommy I need to make this right now" projects, so not the best materials, but it worked for a bit. He wanted a really big kite, but I think your smaller version would have been a better idea though. I wanted to let you know about this cool site we found recently. It is all about creating stuff out of recycled materials and tape, which is a daily event in our house. This guy took it to a new level, and I find it inspiring. Your creations are certainly more artistic, but thought you'd find some inspiration here none the less. looledo.com congrats on all your success!

Made these this weekend with several kids. The Picture of the folded paper with the marks on it threw me for a few minutes because it LOOKS like it is a whole sheet not a folded sheet. Once I figured out that you need to put the marks on the folded edge of the paper the rest was easy. Kids had a ball BUT these do not fly like a regular kite. They are more like a really cool paper airplane that you can run around and fly instead of throw.

Totally worth making and I plan to do these again.

I saw this and thought, how much fun would it be if I could design faries instead of birds. my girls would love it!!!! But. I am not very talented, and making seems so much more work than your post. Any thoughts or suggestions?

We made these after I read this post. They were a huge hit here as well. Then we made paper airplanes too. Also a huge hit. Who knew how entertaining paper was??

.-= Brandies last blog ..Vlogging again. =-.

How cute and fun. Great idea. It is warming up here a little and my kids are off track so we are looking for these kinds of fun ideas. Thanks!

.-= Brandies last blog ..Give Me Your Best Shot! =-.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

3a8082e126