K32 - Hex #2

Kite #1 of an 8-piece stack that I am building for WSIKF 2019

Some good notes:

• The issue with too much fabric in the middle that I had with K31, didn't happen this time. I think it was just due to sloppy process. I traced the LE line on the front of the sail so I had a better guide when doing the holding stitch.
• Hot-tacking worked a bit better this time. I decreased the solding iron's temperature to 200C, and that seemed to help. Still used plenty of blue tape to go along with it. Might try a lower temperature still.
• The sail turned out very symmetric, which is nice. Put in some extra pieces along the edges to fill out the size.
• Because this kite is meant to be in a stack, I used bungee tensioning on the bottom tips instead of bridle line. I like the bridle line approach better, but I know it has 0 give. I expect this kite to be put under more stress than usual, so bungees seem appropriate. I did still build the sail to work with bridle line instead in case this kite ever gets dropped from the stack or something.

Some not-so-good notes:

• Got some bad stitches in there. I switched bobbins, and thought I grabbed the right bobbin, but it ended up being one with thicker thread which fucked up my tensioning. I took all of my threaded bobbins with old thread and pulled the thread off so I don't use the wrong bobbin again. I did do a test stitch, but didn't notice any issue at the time.
• The sail still seems too small. Going to increase the LE width by another inch, and increase the height by another 1/4 inch.
• Tried the leading edge T fitting approach that I used in K31 again, but made the holes bigger. Still don't like it. Going to go back to cutting out a rectangle for the T fitting.

This stack won 1st place in experienced sport kite hand crafted at the Washington State International Kite Festival in 2019.