Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/141

 Kite Making at Home— II

How to Build and Fly the Blue Hill /^^ Box, Malay Box Combination and Tetrahedral Cell Kites

Bv H. S. Rinktr

(Concluded from June issue) • -

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�� ��A box kite is the most practical to build and the easiest to fly

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��HAVING progressed thus far, variety can be introduced by making some Blue Hill box-kites. These are named after the Blue Hill Weather Observatory, Massachusetts, where they were originated. They look like Fig. i6.

Make 4 sticks |^ in. square, but otherwise proceed as described for the Malay kite. All kite sticks must be worked out in this manner to assure the absence of cross or twisted grain. Otherwise they may least expect it, and make more trouble than if made right at first. Several ways of bracing have been used, but the writer has had best results from the one shown. Put the frame together as indicated in Fig. 18.

Two of these side frames for each kite. For bracing better than a bamboo pole, about '4 m. in diameter. Take a piece of this about 4 ft. 6 ins. long and rip it exactly in half, from each end until about 4 ins.

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are needed

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��in the middle remain uncut. Wrap this part with wire and solder. Then it will appear as shown in Fig. 19. Spread it out on your bench and hold with wire nails as illustrated in Fig. 20.

Now at points marked A, cut a shoulder, so that you can spring the brace into the holes in the hardwood strips. Take two strips of cambric 19 ins. wide and hem both sides, making them 18 ins. when hemmed. Pull out the puckers and square one end. Measure 12 ft. I in. and scjuare the other end. Sew up with a half-inch seam. You now ha\e

1 two endless loops,

2 each exactly 12 ft. I long and 18 ins. wide.

Glue the seam to the other sides of one stick. Slip the other side frame into the loop, put in the stretchers, adjust the sails smoothK', mark with a pencil, take down and glue. When knocked down this kite folds flat. It cannot be rolled.

The bridle is a loop of twine tied to the sticks at the inner margins of the cambric.

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