Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Making 3 ColorWing Morphos

This is a time-lapse that shows the incredibly lengthy process of painting and building these kites. Included is the complete paint and sewing job of one of the three. There is a total of 13 hours per kite of painting, and roughly that of cutting and building as well. The paint when dry adds about 14 grams to the total weight of the kite. The actual process of painting takes many days however, because there are 4 layers per panel and each layer has to dry completely before the next is added. There are a few things this does not show like the initial cutting of the panels and the complete framing processes. The kites are Morpho Gliders designed by Tim Elverston. Graphics and related technologies are by Ruth Whiting. The wing span is 14 feet each, or 4.25 meters. Weight of each finished kite is around 285 grams, or around 10 ounces. Thanks and enjoy!



If you are enjoying the video, it is VERY worth setting playback to 720p HD and clicking full screen.

Music is by Floex and is used with permission from the artist.

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Also, some backstory:
Pictured briefly at the end of this video are deltas made at Jordan Air kites. I designed these deltas at jordan air after being exposed to George Peters kites via Kitelines Magazine back in 1993 and also a small 2 foot plastic delta [giant by Charlie's standards] made by Charlie Sotich in 1995 which kind of started my entire obsession with glider-deltas. I never made any more like them. But after finding an old one in a friend's garage, dean recently revisited the design and has made a few - check out his site for the story. Kinda cool to have it all come full circle.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

wow......love being able to see it all come together!!!
so...the Morphos have 5 rod-sets? spine
spreader
LE
LE
Nose elipse?

and the LE are actually strung like a tent pole? What do the ends of the rod spans look like?

I love seeing all the design-work you come up with!

What wind ranges would you fly a cuben Morpho in?

one more.....
Where is Dean talking about making those deltas? i have not seen anything change on his site in awhile :(

Bon vent!
r

indigo_wolf said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
indigo_wolf said...

Crikey Rob...

http://jordanairkites.blogspot.com/

There are none so blind as those who won't take the comforter off their head....sigh. :oO

ATB,
Sam