35 replies to this topic

[AldenMiler]

I suck as a pilot

Just wanted to make sure that you got adequate attention for this comment Rich!

-Alden

[quaa714]

Just wanted to make sure that you got adequate attention for this comment Rich!

-Alden

Thx pal! But my putting out there first trumps your mentioning it after the fact. Heheheheh!

[Jynx]

...and DON'T forget the Treasure Island Kite Festival in January 2013!

You'll meet-up with phenomenal Rev flyers and have the opportunity to learn from and Fly with them!

[KurtCira]

I use SS tubes occasionally, I like a P-90 leading edge, (particularly in zero wind conditions). Dremel (cut down) the center stick only and leave the two outers full length. Use four inch solid carbon ferules too. Your P-300 could be used in place of 3 wraps on the down spars, but the Race Frame is worth the money if you can afford to go there for the leading edge

My buddy Dave Ashworth uses Skyshark tubes exclusively in all his home-builts, in fact he'll buy blemished/reject rods if they are available! At that price they are almost disposable. We frequently use the tapered skyshark spars for down tubes in our local conditions. A no-wind favorite is a 2-P taper. WARNING: This is a very delicate stick, but we also use magic sticks to reinforce the structure, like a suspension bridge. All the skyshark sticks are too long when purchased, so we cut down the "fat part" and add a vinyl end cap onto the skinnier end to build it back up thicker (so the end-cap doesn't wiggle).

If you are crafting a no-wind only model, seek a discontinued SS tube called a "response 12". You'll have to work HARD for these darn things, as they have been out of production for at least a decade. It's a killer stick though, sanded, painted and silky smooth in flight too. Since it's tapered, you are moving more weight forward, towards the leading edge. That makes an improved glide. To go even further down this increased glide path, you will cut the tapered spar to end at the end of the sail. Now your stock length down spars won't fit,.... since you'll also need to adjust your bungie lengths on the bottoms of the sail. If you want to experiment, then don't cut the excess length of bungie off, then you can always return back to stock.

You might consider making "travel sets" with your skyshark tubes as well. Instead of a five piece frame set you'll make each one of those tubes into 2 separate pieces. A P-100 and P-300 travel set would cover a big spectrum of potential wind conditions. The extra ferulles are increasing the overall frame's weight and also stiffening it substantially. The travel sets won't work the same, (as full length frame sets) but they will certainly be necessary some day when you want to travel light w/only a backpack and coffee cup.

In no way am I against any of the REv sticks, but if you're a home kite builder then you have probably got some SS tubes laying around already. Experiment around and form your own opinion.

Thanks, Mr. Guru. Everything you say makes a lot of sense. Are SS P2X tubes close to Rev Race Rods in strength/weight? I have a set of P1X tubes as well. The X series according to the Sky Shark site uses a higher strength carbon fiber, like the race rods.

I cut all the rods I need to 31" and just need to install the ferrules. I bought some heavy hollow carbon rods with an OD of .240" to use as ferrules for my light weight frames in place of heavier solid ferrules. It seems to me like these might also work well with heavier rods as well. It seems to me like there are two ways to look at the ferrules. Either they are as strong or stronger than the rods, in which case the rods will probably break first, or they can be slightly weaker and they break first. It seems to make sense that it would be best to break a cheap ferrule in the place of an expensive rod. My Prism 4D seems to have been designed so the aluminum leading edge ferrules (external) and ferrule in the T-connector break before the rods. I made replacements out of stainless steel tubing of the same dimension, and have gone from breaking ferrules to breaking rods. Rods for the 4D are cheap so it's no big deal. But at $6-$10 for a good frame rod it becomes a consideration. Any thoughts. Thankfully I had bought a bunch of blemished rods that were in the $2-$3 range, so I can break a few and still save up for my future B-Pro vented.

[KurtCira]

Trust the advice you've gotten here. As you gain experience you will find yourself adding more brake until you have it maxed out. Having more brake actually makes keeping your kite in the air much easier, once you have mastered the basic turns and hovers. Unlearning bad habits is much more difficult than learning the correct methods when you begin flying. I recommend (from personal experience, having done it the wrong way myself) that you max out the brake until you can no longer launch the kite, and then backing it off one knot at a time until you can launch. Also search the forum for topics and threads on sail loading, as these will make launching with lots of brake much easier.

This turned out to be very good advice this weekend. I thought the weekend would be a washout with Hurricane Sandy passing through, but Saturday and Sunday were great. Winds were west (for a change--prevailing winds in summer here are almost always from the east) at about 10-15, but variable down to about 3 and gusting to about 25. I could have used a vented sail when the gusts came up but I compensated by quickly getting to the edges of the window. I had a few hard crashes when practicing inverted hovers or in the 4:30 and 7:30 positions and a strong gust came up. However, by adding as much brake as possible I found the kite much easier to control and inverted and backwards flying was much easier. It seems like the stronger the wind the more brake is needed.

Flying in these gusty winds was a definite challenge, but I think was very valuable to my learning experience. Having to deal with the variability of the gusts made me much quicker to react to the wind and develop finer kite control. It didn't seem that way at first, because hovering in gusty winds doesn't look good, but when the winds slowed down a bit and smoothed out I found that I could do also all the basic hover positions with ease and even backwards flight in the near inverted positions was almost easy.

[stroke survivor]

Sounds like you were pushing it, using a full sail kite in those winds!! That's why most of us have several, to match up kite and winds, and have a good match!

Another way to describe braking: think of it as coasting in your car! Foot off the gas and brakes!! Kite only responds when YOU give it inputs!! You're looking for a neutral setup, one that neither has too much forward drive or can't get off the ground because of too much brake!!! But that is all dependent on you, how you like the kite!! Some like it "dead", no movement at all unless told; some like a little drive so that they "ride the brakes" a bit!! How it's setup isn't the important thing, it's what works for you that counts!!
Nice thing is that the setup is never-ending, always a challenge!! Good luck and hope you find YOUR settings!!

[makatakam]

If you have glued the ferrule (solid ferrules are preferred by most flyers) with an epoxy or other kind of permanent adhesive, when you break a ferrule you can't get what's left out of the rod. When you break a ferrule you have to replace the ferrule or build a new center spar. If you break a rod you tape the break and turn it around and keep flying. Therefore the solid ferrule will save you time because it is less likely to break.

[KurtCira]

If you have glued the ferrule (solid ferrules are preferred by most flyers) with an epoxy or other kind of permanent adhesive, when you break a ferrule you can't get what's left out of the rod. When you break a ferrule you have to replace the ferrule or build a new center spar. If you break a rod you tape the break and turn it around and keep flying. Therefore the solid ferrule will save you time because it is less likely to break.

That would be true if I used epoxy or superglue. I decided to try using hot melt glue instead. This way I can replace a broken ferrule.

I read through the forum for advice on gluing and saw a discussion about glue where someone stated that they thought hot glue could be ok if you didn't live in a hot climate. Yes, if you leave your kite in a hot car that gets up to 150 degrees F. inside and you try to put the kite together before the frame has cooled it could result in ferrules being pushed inside the center rod, but most kite people wouldn't (or shouldn't) leave their kites in a hot car. My hot glue started melting at about 150-160 degrees F. so I don't anticipate a problem.

There is an important possible objection to using hot melt glue that I didn't see mentioned. How do you achieve a good and thorough filing of the joint with glue? This is also import with superglue. Normal superglue is relatively watery so it will have a hard time filling the approximate .014 clearance gap between theferrule and the tube. Therefore the common use of high-viscosity glue that is thick enough to fill the gap. Hot glue will fill the gap but is difficult to get to completely fill the joint. As soon as you apply glue to the ferrule it starts to cool and becomes difficult to spread. If you apply the glue and spread it out to coat half the ferrule it will be cool and peel off the ferrule as you try to push it in. And getting it spread evenly over the whole ferrule is difficult in itself. I had to solve these problems.

I turned to an old welding technique. I preheated the rods and ferrules with a hair dryer (about 210 degrees F. max outlet temp) and used a nozzle to focus the heat from about 2-3 inches away. I then grabbed a ferrule, put some hot glue on it from my cheap gun, spread it out with my fingertip, heated it again under the hair dryer, spread the glue again, heated it again, inserted it into the rod with a rotating twist while holding both pieces in front of the heat, pulled it out and heated it one last time, spread it one last time with my finger then inserted it to 50% depth. I wiped off excess glue as soon as it started to cool, then used a small Scotch-Brite pad to finish cleaning whenthey were cold.

The ferrules seem very solid, and all I need to remove a broken one is a heat source. I'll let you know how it works out. It may be that hot glue joint failures are largly a matter of poor assembly technique.

Finally, I decided that I will test the relative stiffness of all my leading edge sets (I will have 6 different tube types) by supporting the end of the leading edge horizontally, putting a 5 pound weight in the center and measure the deflection. Has anyone out there tried this and have any data to share?

[SparkieRob]

Could also pre-heat the rods in an oven, on fairly low. Might get more even heat. Used to do this before welding with cast iron. Great topic!


Tapatalk for iPhone.

[KurtCira]

Could also pre-heat the rods in an oven, on fairly low. Might get more even heat. Used to do this before welding with cast iron. Great topic!


Tapatalk for iPhone.

The problem I see with using an oven is that unlike cast iron the hollow rods and tiny ferrules begin to cool very quickly, and since I needed to heat the rods and ferrules several times it made more sense to use a small hot air source that can be on the work table. Plus you would need a big oven for a 31" long rod!

[makatakam]

Pre-heating is great when you're at home and have all the materials and tools at your disposal. On the other hand, when you're outdoors flying and have a bare minimum of tools, including what others may have, then taping the tube where it splintered and putting the other end on the ferrule gets you back up in the air in less than five minutes.

[KurtCira]

Pre-heating is great when you're at home and have all the materials and tools at your disposal. On the other hand, when you're outdoors flying and have a bare minimum of tools, including what others may have, then taping the tube where it splintered and putting the other end on the ferrule gets you back up in the air in less than five minutes.

Pulling a new rod all set up out of your bag and replacing the broken one would take even less time. But if you just had a ferrule it wouldn't be too difficult to affect a temporary repair with a lighter and short stick of hot glue. Then do it right when you get home and put the repaired rod back in your bag.

[kellykelly]

Hi,
We have a great kite club Kiting Tampa BayBig Rev flyers!
We are having a big festival in Jay 19-20 on Treasure Island Beach.

Come fly with us!!

[KurtCira]

A quick update, and thanks to all. This will probably be my last post in the "New to Rev Flying" catagory. I feel as if I have progressed quite a bit in the last month, despite having yet to see another Rev fly. I joined a Meet-Up kite fly on Fort Lauderdale beach a couple weeks ago and though I was the only Rev flying (or multi-line) I hope to help two of the members who have Revs to learn how fly them so I can have some company. I am going to try to make it to the Treasure Island Kite Festival this January and get a chance to meet some of you and learn more about this sport. I can now fly inverted almost as well as upright and backwards flight is getting easier. Last weekend I was working on stop dives into a tip stand. If the wind is steady it's really pretty easy. I made Barresi style leaders for my handles and I find that I'm using about 3 1/2" to 4" of brake most of the time, but I'm continueing to experiment. I've experimented with my new frames (I'll have 6 different sets) and will have a future post with rod data I've put together that I hope the rest of you will find useful (or at least provocative).:kid_devlish:src="http://www.revkites....d_devlish.gif">

Finally, I have a new B-Series vented with Race Rods coming today, along with 2 more sets of handles (13" & 15") and a couple of more line sets. Am I addicted yet?

[Trigger]

i have looked at your posts..... most of them are between 12 and 4 PM..... when that is AM.....you are an addict!

but you are darn close!

[stroke survivor]

A couple of kites, handles, and lines?? Sounds like you've been bitten, watch out when it's full grown!!