Sled Kite Plans

These sled kite plans are aimed at summarizing the more in-depth instructions to be found under the How To Make A Kite section of this website. It's up to you to do a neat job and keep the weight down!

The photo over there shows all 3 MBK Sleds in the air together. See if you can identify them! The 1-Skewer Sled is almost invisible due to the time of day and cloud cover, but it is the closest to the camera.

For each kite plan below, there are also a pair of plan view photos. The one on the left is of the front surface. That is, the surface of the flying kite which faces the flier. The other photo is of the back surface, which exposes the spars.

1-Skewer Sled Kite Plans

Tips And Hints

1. Reinforce the sail edges by adding clear sticking tape over the outlines, then trimming back to the outlines.
2. Secure the sail to the spar ends and spar centers using short lengths of clear sticking tape.
3. At the towing points, add clear sticking tape to both sides of the plastic, extending out a short distance away from the plastic.
4. Take a length of bridle line about 6 times as long as the kite is high, and tie each end tightly around the towing point tape, crushing it.
5. Each tail can simply be threaded between the bottom end of the vertical spar and the sail, then looped through itself and tightened.
6. Attach flying line to the bridle with a shiftable knot, to get it exactly center - or just put an overhand loop into the bridle after ensuring it is dead-center.
7. Adjust the length of one tail to trim out any tendency to hang left or right in flight.

The PDF eBook 8 MBK Kites To Make - The Complete 1-Skewer Series is useful if you prefer to print out the step-by-step instructions and plans for this kite.

Plan View Photos

2-Skewer Sled Kite Plans

Tips And Hints

1. Reinforce the sail edges by adding clear sticking tape over the outlines, then trimming back to the outlines.
2. Secure the sail to the spar ends and spar centers using short lengths of electrical insulation tape.
3. At the towing points, add electrical insulation tape to both sides of the plastic, extending out a short distance away from the plastic.
4. Take a length of bridle line about 6 times as long as the kite is high, and tie each end tightly around the towing point tape, crushing it.
5. Each tail can simply be threaded between the bottom end of the vertical spar and the sail, then looped through itself and tightened.
6. Attach flying line to the bridle with a shiftable knot, to get it exactly center
7. Adjust the length of one tail to trim out any tendency to hang left or right in flight.

The PDF eBook 8 MBK Kites To Make - The Complete 2-Skewer Series is useful if you prefer to print out the step-by-step instructions and plans for this kite.

Plan View Photos

Dowel Sled Kite Plans

Tips And Hints

1. Reinforce the sail edges by adding nearly the full width of clear sticking tape inside the outlines, then trimming back to the outlines. You can save some weight by not putting any tape around the vents, except short pieces at the corners to reinforce.
2. Secure the sail to the spar ends and spar centers using short lengths of electrical insulation tape. I used 1.1 meter lengths of 4mm dowel.
3. At the towing points, add electrical insulation tape to both sides of the plastic, extending out a short distance away from the plastic. Also add a short piece in the vertical direction for extra reinforcement.
4. Take a length of bridle line about 8 times as long as the kite is high, and tie each end around the towing point tape, crushing it tightly with a slip knot.
5. Attach flying line to the bridle with a shiftable knot, to get it exactly center.

Plan View Photos

These plans, plus all the other related pages on this site for making the Dowel Sled kite are available as a convenient PDF eBook.

Last updated: 16 Dec 2008