Welcome to Windstock.net

serious name dropping ahead...

This was just another one of those days that unfolds nicely.

First off, I had a chance to talk with Dean Jordan for a short while. In case you don't already know, Dean is a world famous kite designer and flyer. He just so happens to live in the same little town we do and is a most friendly fellow.

Dean is well known for his beautiful Jordan Airform Kites. His accomplishments in the kiting world are vast. You can see his site here.

Here is his favorite kite right now. Shown without its frame inserted. He made it last year. It's at least 10 feet wide and very light. He says it will fly nearly directly overhead without overflying. I look forward to seeing that machine in the air one day.

The window panels are an "unobtainium" material, as no source to aquire more can be found. You can't tell from the picture, but the material has a somewhat opal sheen resulting in little prism star crosses that flicker as the light moves. Very interesting, and a really cool kite.

Dean is headed to the dry lake beds of Nevada as NABX is near. I really need to do that sometime. Or maybe burning man. Can you kite buggy at burning man? hmmmm.

After leaving Dean's house, I headed for Burrito Brothers for some lunch. While waiting for my order I noticed an email from Rob Banks. Too Cool!

Rob is a very well known kite flyer and builder. He is also known for running one of the coolest and eclectic kite shops on the net, Windswept Kites. His site caters to a wide collection of skilled kite artists and makers.

I got my first iFlite (#576) from Rob's site. It's well worth the time to explore his site, you can see it here.

Rob emailed about my projects and hot cutting in particular. I use cardstock templates and the soldering iron will eventually take its toll on the edges of the form. Four hundred degrees tends to have its way with paper.

He mentioned that he had read on the kitebuilder.com site a disscussion about protecting paperstock templates with the metal foil tape duct tape. Great idea! I had recently purchased some shiny reflective duct tape, so i tried edging the spike template with my tape.

The curves of the template made it a little tricky to apply, but it all went well.

It didn't take long to realize that my tape was not foil, but a poly plastic of some kind. Nonetheless the tape only melted a little right along the edge of the template.

The template seemed to cure, and all in all the tape seemed to work well as protection for the template, despite not being made of metal.

I will check the store for some metal tape, but for now all is well, so on with the construction of spike!

WARNING: FIRE HAZARD.... BURN HAZARD ! ! !

if you are trying to hot cut using a soldering iron, exercise extreme caution. Soldering irons can easily reach five hundred degrees or much much higher. It is very dangerous. Very! Please be safe.