I’ve put the silver flowform aside, as my initial sewing was pretty abysmal. I think I’ve got the tension, etc, right now…
So yesterday and today I used what scraps of materials I could find to make a kite ferry…
I think about dropping things from kites (an admirable pastime!) in three categories.
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A simple dropper. Elastic/rubber creates the tension – when you jerk on the line, the two pieces separate, allowing the ring to drop away. But then you have to pull it in again if you want to drop something else… A simple dropper. The ‘payload’ is attached to the kite line and raised up into the sky. It is dropped by some (unspecified) mechanism. Kenny Noble and I tried to perfect a knot that could tie a plastic parachute to the kite line, and then release it with a series of tugs. Not always successful, and really at the bottom of the hierarchy in my mind! I’ve made one device that uses rubber bands as resistance, allowing it (sometimes) to drop the payload when it is pulled – but it is pretty fine tuning to keep it from extending and prematurely dropping.
- Next would be a kite messenger. In this case, the device (along with the payload) runs up the kite line on its own. When it hits a ‘stopper’ on the line, it releases the payload. But the messenger doesn’t have any way of coming back down the line.
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The release area. When the front of the ferry hits the stopper, it pushed a fibreglass rod back through the main rod. And the items held by that rod drop away. And one of them holds the lines that hold the wing against the wind . And it can then slide back down the line. Then comes the pinnacle, in my opinion – the kite ferry. This is a device that will climb the kite line, hit a stopper, drop its payload – but then change configuration so it can slide back down the line. Though I’m dropping various junk, the longer term plan is to use this device to drop fishing hooks – allowing Averil to ‘cast’ her fishing line much further out than she would otherwise be able.
This is the second substantial messenger I have made. The first was over-built, but did sometimes, periodically, occasionally work. I’ve not persevered with it over the last year much.
Last thing to do is to work out an effective stopper – maybe a polystyrene ball? I have had mixed results making the ‘disk’ type stopper. They have worked, but I’m hoping for something more workable.
And my final design feature relates to my wanting to be able to break the device apart, roll it up and carry it easily. I think this one might be a winner, eventually.