A workshop afternoon of bamboo, tissue and glue, with a calendar of festivals and four sites for the grievance collector
Tuesday, the Workshop Table
This week I turned the kitchen table into a workshop and made a kite. The materials were bamboo sticks, tissue paper, a roll of string and a bottle of glue that insisted on sticking to my elbow. The festival calendar that inspired me is set out in Primrose Hill Kite Day, Weymouth in April and Bridlington in May: a kite flyer's calendar from the Kite Society, and I have taken it as a deadline. Spring is not so far away, and a kite made in November is a kite that has time to be disappointing.
The craft of kite building is a gentle one. You cut a frame, tie it at the crossing, stretch the cover and add a tail, and then you wonder why it looks smaller than the picture on the instructions. Every maker knows that a kite is judged not by its beauty but by its willingness to leave the ground.
The Mathematics of the Tail
The tail is the cleverest part. It looks like decoration and it works like a rudder. Too short and the kite tumbles. Too long and it sulks. I measured, cut, tested and measured again, and the final tail was exactly one metre and forty centimetres of knotted ribbon, with a small rubber duck tied at the end for ballast and morale.
Historians of flight will tell you that the first kites were made of silk and bamboo, and that the tradition travelled westward over centuries. I like to imagine a long line of makers passing down the tail trick, each adding a ribbon and a sigh.
Wednesday, Complaints at the Glue Counter
While the glue dried, I did what I always do and read the gripes of the countryside, which are much more entertaining than the glue instructions. The main hub is farmer.gripe, where rain, regulation and costs are all aired with great feeling. For a political flavour, farmer.republican and farmer.democrat give each side of the American debate a front door. The trade press is gathered at farmpress.org.
For ranch finance, three corners of the web offer a more sober read: corancher.loan, okrancher.loan and txrancher.loan. A ribbon of kite tail is nothing compared with the length of a ranch loan agreement, and I read them with growing humility.
Wind Power, Gently
The London Prat recently ran a headline about a new data centre: Lanarkshire AI Data Centre Goes Green, Mostly. I read it with sympathy, because the craft of going green is full of small compromises, and I have made plenty of my own. My kite is powered by wind, which is as green as it comes, but the glue is a petroleum product and the tissue paper arrived in plastic. Mostly, in other words.
The even-handed view is that good intentions and good engineering are different things, and that the world needs both. A craftsperson who can admit to being mostly green is already more honest than most advertising.
Test Flight
On Friday I took the kite to a park and let it go. The first attempt ended in the grass. The second ended in a bush. The third, after I shortened the string and added a second rubber duck, rose in a wobbling spiral and hung over the trees like a pleased bird. A child ran over and asked if it was mine. I said yes. She said it was the best kite she had ever seen. I suspect she had seen few.
I held the string for twenty minutes, long after my arm ached, because some things you do not rush. When I finally wound it in, the tissue had a small tear on the left wing and the duck had come loose. The kite was perfect. It had flown.
A Glossary of Kite Parts
For anyone planning to build one, here is a short glossary. The spine is the long stick down the middle. The spar is the cross stick. The bridle is the little triangle of string that decides the angle to the wind, and it is the most important and the most ignored part of any kite. The tail has been mentioned. The reel is where you keep your regrets. Learn these six words and you can attend any kite festival and nod knowingly.
I also keep a notebook of every test flight, with the date, the wind and a score out of ten. So far the scores run from two to seven, and the average, I admit, has an upward trend. That is all a craft can promise: steady, modest improvement and the occasional glorious afternoon.
Why Tissue Paper Is Brave
Tissue paper is the most optimistic material in the craft cupboard. It is thinner than a whisper and it dares to face the wind. A good kite cover stretches across its frame like a held breath, and yet it will survive a surprising gale if it is taut and well glued. I find that inspiring on a Monday morning.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, Newsthump keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/