Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/949

 �Kite Making at Home

��How to Build and Fly the Malay, Blue Hill Box and Tetra- hedral Cell Kites

��By Harry F. Rinker

��All the kites to

be described in this article,

which is to be concluded in the July

issue, are here shown

��THOUGH the kite is usually thought of as having four corners, with a grotesque face painted on each side and terminating in a tail of rags, the fact is that this sort of kite has disappeared. Today every boy who is scientifically inclined, can build for himself kites which are as much ahead of the one Benjamin Franklin | used as the motor-cycle > is an improvement over ^ the bicycle.

���6 ® V 4*2

��Building the Malay

We will begin opera- tions by making six-foot Malays, each of which carries i8 sc]. ft. of sail, or io8 sq. ft. for the battery. The maxi- mum pull from these kites is delivered at approximately 45 degrees flying angle, and the tangent of 45 degrees being .707, the resultant pull equals approximately 7/10 the horizontal wind force per square foot. With a ten-pound breeze, therefore, the pull of one kite will be 126 pounds, and six of them will pull 756 pounds. It is evident, therefore, that some mechan- ical advantage is needed by the oper-

��F16URE.2

��921

��ator to handle such a force as this, and such apparatus will be discussed later. The design of the kite is as follows: The frame of this kite consists of two sticks at right angles to each other, supporting the sail. For the six-foot kite, the two sticks are each 6 ft. long. The vertical stick is placed keelwise, while the transverse stick is laid flatwise across it. The required size for the vertical stick is I in. by 3^ in. and for the transverse I stick ^ in. by % in.

Take a piece of clear white pine, spruce, or fir stock, i3^ ins. thick, and split it once. Plane up the split edge to a straight edge, and rip off, parallel to it, six pieces % in. wide. The majority of the fibers in each piece must run from end to end. Clamp up and plane off to i in. thickness, as shown in Fig. i. Take apart and lay flat on bench as in Fig. 2. and dress to 3^ in. thickness. Spring each piece carefully in your hands to see that it has uniform strength. Get your cross-sticks from i in. or J/g in. stock in a similar manner:

��''0mmimmmM'M0'\

�� �