Power Kite Forum - Finished my 15m NPW

Finished my 15m NPW

Purely Luck - 28-10-2013 at 07:30 AM

It took me about 2 months, but it has been finished. My 15m npw9 is up and flying!

I need to do some work on the bridle to get it to behave. (nose will collapse when it picks up speed and it tends to like to fly backwards.)

Other than that though, I am pretty happy with how it turned out!
Wind was less than 5mph here.

Congrats

skimtwashington - 28-10-2013 at 04:02 PM

How many hours on sewing? What are most time sucking parts?

Purely Luck - 28-10-2013 at 05:09 PM

Thanks! The most time sucking part is the sewing in my opinion. It takes lots of patients! I think that getting a system down to sew efficiently is half the battle.

It took me about 4 hours for each seam in the beginning and I prob got it down to 2 hours a seam by the end.

So prob 30-40 hours with the sewing. Spreading it out in 3-4 hour sessions. The bridle took about 5 hours to make/attach.

I am sure that going down to a 6-7 meter would half that time.

I have a pretty small space to work on it, so it was hard managing the fabric at times. I even went to the local university with it a couple times in order to just be able to lay it down flat.

That being said, I have already found myself calculating the size of my next build :o

I have found kite building to be pretty addicting!

skimtwashington - 28-10-2013 at 08:08 PM

So you can't run down a seam too fast?

....Roll two edges into folded seam and run it through at a steady pace..?

4 hours a seam seems real slow... but it must be much harder to hold seam together as you run it through machine...than I remember.
I helped sew a little on my friends 2.5 Nasa Wing... But I can't remember much other than sewing several feet- though I thought it was rather quickly..? Cutting the pieces seemed tedious though.

I have to admit I thought of making but never did-as I bought several sizes direct from China! There are not as great quality as ones home built-such as in the stitching and bridal material. His was well made and I saw a slightly smaller one he bought from Kitemaker4-{The Goddess}. Hers are top notch. .

But the satisfaction must be great in making one!

Cheddarhead - 28-10-2013 at 08:43 PM

Nice job! Great choice of colors, IMHO.

bigkid - 29-10-2013 at 05:03 AM

Quote: Originally posted by skimtwashington

So you can't run down a seam too fast?

....Roll two edges into folded seam and run it through at a steady pace..?

4 hours a seam seems real slow... but it must be much harder to hold seam together as you run it through machine...than I remember.
I helped sew a little on my friends 2.5 Nasa Wing... But I can't remember much other than sewing several feet- though I thought it was rather quickly..? Cutting the pieces seemed tedious though.

I have to admit I thought of making but never did-as I bought several sizes direct from China! There are not as great quality as ones home built-such as in the stitching and bridal material. His was well made and I saw a slightly smaller one he bought from Kitemaker4-{The Goddess}. Hers are top notch. .

But the satisfaction must be great in making one!

you have to add the bridle tabs along the seams, not just a zip from one end to the other.

I dont make kites, dont have the patients. But I do repairs, which take much longer.:puzzled: :lol:

kitemaker4 - 29-10-2013 at 10:26 AM

Just be careful with such a big kite. The nasa wings fly a little different then foils so it takes practice to get the feel. Take it out in winds below 5mph for right now to stay safe.

Susan (npw goddess)

bigE123 - 29-10-2013 at 10:51 AM

Good job!! If it likes/wants to fly backwards it's usually a sign that there is too much brake line tension, but you also say you have a bit of nose collapse which is not enough tension? You may need to increase the centre section tension on the brakes for the nose, but release the side brakes (can't remember how many brake lines the 9b has).
Good luck, as Susan says keep it in low winds till it's set-up that is a beast ;-)

rectifier - 29-10-2013 at 09:21 PM

Sweet job buddy! 15m is a real monster, where are you flying that has such gentle, steady winds?
I am waiting for wind to launch my new NPW. They are fun to build, it's a real thrill to ride with a kite you built.

That *is* a long time per seam, I didn't sew on tabs on mine. Just rolled a line inside the seam and bridled around it. BigE has a cool technique where he uses webbing along the seams, I might do that on my next NPW.

I had lots of issues with backwards flying/nose collapse on my 9b. It can be a fine line between nose collapse (not enough brake) and backwards flying (too much!)
I found the solution for me was the Z-bridle, which puts the brake bias setting on the kite instead of having to maintain it with my hands. This will at least keep it moving forwards by default!

Also, what is your bridle line. If it is stretchy at all, there can be no end of problems as the canopy shape can change as wind speed changes.

Purely Luck - 30-10-2013 at 06:16 AM

Quote:

That *is* a long time per seam

Yeah, I wasn't trying to set any speed records. Perhaps it was the beer breaks that made it take so long. Haha

I use spectra for the bridle secondaries and sleeved spectra for the primaries.

I live just north of detroit, Michigan.

I took it out last night and flew it around a bit. There was literally 0 wind. I would have to walk backwards to get it up in the air. The force the thing creates when you fly it around is absurd!
Still not happy with the bridle. I think I need to go remeasure some of the lines and make sure there wasn't a mistake because it just isn't flying too well. Seems to get worse the more I mess with the bridle. lol!

Purely Luck - 30-10-2013 at 06:24 AM

Also thanks for the safety heads up Kitemaker4 and bigE123, just in the couple times I have had this thing out in sub 5mph winds have shown me how much grunt these things have.

I have much respect for you kitemaker and bigE. Making these things takes a ton of patients!

kitemaker4 - 30-10-2013 at 07:32 AM

I have had a lot of practice when it comes to making nasa wings.

Susan (npw goddess)

bigE123 - 30-10-2013 at 03:08 PM

And with it lots of patience! All those clichés "measure twice cut once" are worth there weight in gold! Now you have it all bridled, rather than re-measure every line, just measure the first one and make sure it's right, then measure the second line against the first and make sure the difference is correct and so on. The important thing is that the relative differences between each line is correct to give the profile.

Purely Luck - 31-10-2013 at 06:42 AM

Oh good thinking bigE, I didn't think about going about it that way. Thanks for the tip!

bigE123 - 1-11-2013 at 02:12 AM

When your dealing with a bigger kite, obviously the lines are so much longer and the chance of error is bigger, I found checking the difference between each line easier and the accuracy is greater.