Punk sportif (Gaëtan to his friends) wrote this tutorial in 2008 for kitefliers who want to build their own Revolution 1.5 kite. Thanks Gaëtan!
We advise you to read the whole tutorial before you start.
Who is Punk Sportif?
Punk Sportif got hooked on quad line kites around 2008. He has built several Revolution kites. He has helped many kitefliers progress and build their first kite. In particular, he has written this building tutorial, a beginner’s guide to flying kites, and created the RDV Kite website. His contributions can still be seen on the Aufilduvent and Cerfvolantservice forums.
The rest of this page was written by Punk sportif.
The materials you need
- Spi icarex. The sail fits into a 140 x 100 cm piece. But since monocolor is a bit sad, it’s better to take two pieces of 140 x 100 cm.
- Mesh: 5 x 240 cm. When ordering, don’t forget to specify the color: white or black. You can buy it in specialized kite stores. Otherwise, the basic mosquito netting won’t last!
- Webbing: approx. 30 cm.
- Carbon: 3 Skyshark P300 rods for the leading edge and 2 Skyshark P200 rods for the verticals. Skyshark is softer than true Revolution carbon, but also more than a factor cheaper. If you want a rigid leading edge, you’ll have to pay the price!
- 2 ferrules for carbon leading edge assembly.
- 6 x 8 mm endcaps, preferably FSD.
- Dacron: 1 strip 6 cm wide by approx. 250 cm long.
- Polyester sewing thread.
- Bridle: 5 m to be wide enough to allow for mistakes. In the worst case, use the rest to make knot scales. I went for 80 kg… Not sure it’s the wisest choice.
- Bungees: approx. 1 m, 3 mm thick.
For gear, the Cerf-volant service store sells packs containing all the necessary equipment. If the packs contain double-sided tape, I wouldn’t recommend using it. It can block the thread in the needle cat. To overcome this problem, you need to put a drop of oil about every 10 cm of stitching. Quite restrictive.
If you plan to make several kites, it’s best to buy the materials in bulk.
Useful tools
- A ruler.
- Square.
- Hacksaw.
- A large, flat iron ruler, approx. 2m long, for measurements and as a spinnaker-cutting guide.
- A good cutter (having a rotary cutter can be a plus), scissors.
- Pencil.
- Basic liquid glue for the spinnaker and glue for the carbon.
- Cloth.
- Weights (you’ll see why later).
- Lighter.
- Drawing software (but not compulsory).
- Soldering iron (you can do without it too).
Plan of the Revolution 1.5 kite
Well, as I’m not going to redo what I’ve been inspired by, here’s the link to the Revolution dimensions I followed:
Panelling
To decide on colors and paneling, a drawing program may be useful:
You can then print to scale 1 and assemble to make your own patterns. If you have a stock of calendars, you can cut your own patterns from them.
As for me, not trusting my printer, I printed at 1/10 scale and took the dimensions from the wallpaper I had under my arm:
As my rev paneling is symmetrical, I only made a half-wing pattern. When cutting the spinnaker, don’t forget to add 8 mm to the panels for sewing. The lighter panel will take the 8 mm and be positioned below the darker spinnaker. Use a ruler as a guide when cutting on a flexible material. I had lino on hand. This avoids cutting with scissors, which doesn’t produce a straight, clean cut.
To cut the icarex, use a cloth to plate it with static electricity and remove any dust that is attracted. Then trace the patterns with a pencil.
Personally, I don’t find it easy to cut this material, and I’ve even made a few mistakes (the guide ruler slipping while cutting, the spinnaker sliding…). Having two people to do it can be a plus.
Before cutting, place weights all over the spinnaker to prevent it from sliding.
Don’t forget to change the cutter blade regularly, to make cutting easier.
If you look at the photo above, you’ll understand the story of the lighter spinnaker under the darker spinnaker for sewing (you’ll see below that this effect is no longer visible at all from the front, and that the sail corresponds well to the pattern).
You’ll notice that I made a mistake when cutting my purple lightning bolt: there’s no material for sewing on the tips of the lightning bolt. Before sewing on the wing, we assemble it with glue (basic, solvent-free glue). We don’t use tons! After that, the glue spills out, and it’s messy. So really, go easy on the glue, just to make it easier to sew. By the way, if you’re a daredevil sewing pro, you can skip this step. The type of stitching used is 3-stitch zigzag. The distance between two zigzag / stitches is 1.5 cm. Adjust the thread tension carefully, otherwise it will curl the spinnaker. Do a few tests on spinnaker offcuts to adjust the machine before you start. The needle used is a 90 cuire.
Depending on the paneling, you can sew half-wings or the whole wing at once.
The leading edge
Cut a strip of dacron 6 cm wide and approx. 235 cm long (you’ll need to trim any excess later). For the mesh, 235 cm long and 5 cm wide. Fold the dacron in half lengthwise (pinch the fold), then glue 1 cm of mesh to the dacron. Spread with your fingers and, once again, go easy on the glue. Don’t fold the dacron over, because if the glue drools, you’re likely to have problems getting the carbon in later.
Next, we cut 3 pieces of dacron to accommodate the bungees or bridle. 3.5 cm wide and 14 cm long.
You may or may not glue these pieces to the dacron before sewing. For the measurements, since you’ll need to cut off the excess at the ends, we’ll start from the center.
The holes for the bungees and bridle are made with a soldering iron (a heated nail can also do the trick). Then glue 1 cm of mesh to the back of the wing and sew. Finally, trim off the excess at the leading-edge ends. Normally at this stage, the kite begins to take shape in earnest. We add pieces of dacron (the gray pieces on the plan) to the ends of the kite to reinforce it, onto which we’ll sew webbing.
For the kite tip, dacron is sewn onto the front. On the back, we sew a piece of webbing to hold the bungee. The two dacron pieces at the ends of the leading edge are on both sides of the sail, going around the leading edge (as for the center pieces).
And don’t forget the small piece of dacron at the top of the trailing edge.
Carbon rods
Since I am rarely ultra-precise when measuring, I adjusted the size of the carbon. The Skyshark carbon is 82.5 cm long. Cut only the middle rod. That way, if you ever break the carbon at the ends, you can replace the carbon without cutting it.
Then glue the internal fittings into the middle rod, leaving them protruding by half.
To adjust the diameter of the carbon to the ends, you can make a few turns of scotch tape around the carbon.
Here’s the result:
The vertical carbon is not yet adjusted. You’ll notice that I’ve been a bit of a wizard with the glue, that it’s all smudged and looks really disgusting… I won’t do it again!
The trailing edge
Two possibilities:
- Either add 8 mm to the patterns on the edges to fold over and sew a hem.
- Or cut 2 cm-wide spinnaker strips to fit the wing contour. Fold the strips in half, glue and sew.
This is the second solution I opted for. In this case, use the darkest spinnaker color to avoid the unsightly transparent effect. All that remains is to make the bridle…
The bridle
How to explain this… I have to say it helps to have seen someone make one and to have the model in front of you…
Here’s how I made my bridle.
I attached 4 cm bridles to each end cap, as well as to the center bridle on the leading edge. At each end of the bridle, I tied a stopper knot so that I could attach the main bridle.
The main bridle consists of one horizontal and two vertical bridles.
Apart from adjusting the knots to respect the dimensions, the difficulty lies in hooking the vertical bridle to the horizontal one. When you have a model in front of you, it’s not really that difficult. All right, I had to go back to the drawing board twice to make my bridle, and it could certainly be adjusted further, but I expected worse.
As not everyone has a bridle in front of them, here’s how to hook the two bridles together:
So that’s how it’s done. Hope it helps.
Thanks
Thanks to the forumists for their help, especially Zézé and Polo.
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